As green technologies continue to be developed at increasing rates, old paradigms of extraction and exploitation of the Global South are being reimagined for a new era. Lithium Rising illuminates the troubling dirty underpinnings of clean power.
From the moment the smartphone alarm wakes us up in the morning, we begin our day relying on the lithium battery. From mundane tasks to lifesaving realities, lithium-powered devices get us through the day. Yet, access to the critical minerals that power a battery has become a vital geopolitical, economic, and social concern.
Filmed across five continents, Lithium Rising explores how the drive to decarbonize has sparked fierce geopolitical competition, while also imposing steep costs on vulnerable communities on the front lines of mineral extraction. From the salt flats of the Andean highlands to the cobalt pits of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the film meets miners, indigenous leaders, titans of industry, and policymakers navigating the promises and perils of this new resource boom. All too often the stories are the same, as global and national corporations alike seek maximum benefit at the expense of local communities without the economic or political power for self-determination. Whether it's water scarcity threatening communities in the Atacama, echoes of the far-right dictatorship in Chile, or tribal tensions over lithium extraction in Nevada, where Native communities have been increasingly concentrated, the film reveals how the race for a dominance over green technology risks repeating the extractive injustice of the industrial revolution and fossil fuel economy.
With striking access to workers at all levels of the mineral industry, and sweeping visuals, the film asks viewers to consider who benefits from the green boom, and who gets left behind? Lithium Rising is an urgent, human-centered exploration of the hidden costs of the electric age.
FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "Should cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo be avoided due to poor working conditions and child labor? Or would eschewing the country's minerals only punish one of the DRC's few reliable labor sectors? Is exhausting the water supply of a few indigenous communities in the deserts of Chile justifiable if that water can be used to mine lithium that could save the planet? Can we mine our way out of a climate crisis? Or are modern capitalists hiding behind green buzzwords to strike it rich?
From 2023 through 2025, I explored these questions for the Bertelsmann Foundation. On five continents, my colleagues and I conducted more than 100 interviews with people ranging from cobalt miners in the DRC to power players in the upper echelons of the U.S. State Department. I met with industrialists zeroing in on epic paydays and the environmentalists trying to shut them down. I met with labor organizers fighting for unions at EV plants deep in the American South and with indigenous leaders fighting for job opportunities in the Bolivian highlands. What emerged from our journey is a discovery of a complex international ecosystem, with powerful nations maneuvering for control of supply chains and developing countries striving to turn natural wealth into a national opportunity."
— Samuel George
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