Toto has spent most of his life working as a gold prospector on the southernmost tip of Chile. Now in his 60s, he still stands in the river using a sieve to harvest the glistening snippets of gold—day in, day out, come snow or sunshine. He lives a simple and contented life in a little wooden house, along with his son Jorge.

But prospecting is taking an increasing toll on his health, leading to a spell in the hospital. Nonetheless, Toto refuses to trade his way of life for more comfortable work in a neighboring town. So Jorge decides to help his father by designing and building a gold prospecting machine out of old parts.

Over the course of several years the camera follows Toto and Jorge’s dreamlike and melancholic existence. Their conversations and discussions about life, ill-health, and death grow increasingly pressing. Why does fate strike some people harder than others, they wonder, and does it help if you are a believer?

After months of welding, grinding and screw-driving, Jorge’s rusty contraption is in place at last, and his father can get to work again. Will the machine actually work, and will it make Toto’s life easier? - IDFA

Dir. Alfredo Pourailly De La Plaza | 75min | 2024 | Chile, Netherlands

"daily routines are documented with great tenderness....Rich with meticulous detail, De La Plaza’s documentary also doubles as an act of visual scavenging; among these lush fields of grass and snowcapped mountain peaks, the film-maker has also struck gold" - Guardian

"Toto is a sympathetic figure who draws us in with his soft demeanor and introspective journal entries, but his close relationship with his son, Jorge, is the crux of this film" - Full Frame Doc Fest

"With his father’s health and financial future at risk, his cowboy son, Jorge, devises an ingenious machine to free his father from his labors" - DOC NYC Fest

"Alfredo Pourailly de la Plaza expertly shoots this tender tale with attention to the hostile landscape and the small details of how to survive" - POV Magazine

"The film never mocks his resistance to rest. It also refuses to romanticize it. Toto sells small flecks of gold to survive, so stopping work is not a clean moral option. Pride, poverty, habit, and fear are tangled in the same pan. The gold separates. The man does not" - Gazettely