The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (1995)

Two miles into the earth, nine Appalachian miners struggle to survive after a methane explosion leaves them with one hour of oxygen.

Based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and eventually became a NASA scientist.

Duk-soo lost his father and younger sister while taking refuge during the Korean War. He leaves for Germany to work as a miner and enters the Vietnam War. He wishes to find his sister.

Clear the runway for Derek Zoolander, VH1's three-time male model of the year. His face falls when hippie-chic Hansel scooters in to steal this year's award. The evil fashion guru Mugatu seizes the opportunity to turn Derek into a killing machine. It's a well-designed conspiracy and only with the help of Hansel and a few well-chosen accessories like Matilda can Derek make the world safe for male models everywhere.

The son of a working-class British mining family has dreams of pursuing an art career, but when he strikes up an affair with an older, married woman from the town it enrages his kind but possessive mother.

The owner of an Illinois coal mine struggles to keep his business in operation, all the while unaware that among his employees is a saboteur planning destruction and chaos.

The Toilers (1928)

A reporter on a visit to his hometown hears of dangerous conditions at the local coal mine, and proceeds to investigate.

Jimmy Dean's popular 1950 song is translated into a feature length movie about a young couple who elopes to escape the girl's evil stepfather.

A fascinating documentary, shot in the mountainous north of Burma. No filmmaker is welcome there, because, against the background of a civil war, the jade miners enter the deserted mines illegally. With the aid of filming locals, however, Midi Z was able to compile this portrait. Getting rich quick turns out to be hard and risky work Jade has always been a valuable commodity in Asia. In the mountains in the north of Burma there are valuable deposits of jade. The area forms part of Kachin State, inhabited by many ethnic groups which found themselves embroiled in the Civil War in 2010 with the Burmese government. Jade mining was halted because of the conflict. Thousands of workers, however, went to the war zone in order to dig for illegal jade. It turned the region into a no-go area and the filmmaker Midi Z, who had so far made feature films in Burma, saw no opportunity to go and film there. It was far too dangerous. © iffr.com

A documentary about unemployed workers in Walbrzych, Poland.

Tragicomic story about Communist activist who wants to bring the benefits of Communism to the inhabitants of a Serbian village after WW2.

A mining operation in Cerrejon, Northern Colombia revealed a treasure trove of fossils from animals that lived ten million years after the KT extinction that killed the dinosaurs. Surprisingly, enormous reptiles were dominate. Scientists investigate who was the apex predator of the era - Titanoboa, a quarter ton giant snake five times bigger than the largest anaconda, or a similarly giant crocodilian with an incredibly deadly bite force. —David Foss