A former mining town in remote northwest British Columbia, Anyox is now marked by mountainous slag piles accumulated as a byproduct of the early 20th century copper smelting process. Anyox tracks the daily work of the town’s two sole residents, who organise and salvage value out of this seemingly endless mass of industrial waste. Concurrently, the film unfolds a complex labour history and reveals the vestiges of immense environmental degradation produced by the company town model. Anyox explores a history of labour press dissemination, activism and the severe reaction from industry and government. Interlacing past and present, Anyox combines large format cinematography of the contemporary landscape with a study of the archival record, considering the aesthetics it carries, as well as how it reveals and obscures narratives.

Dir. Jessica Johnson & Ryan Ermacora - 87min - 2022 - Canada

"a uniquely immersive watch...Hypnotic in its eerie solemnity, Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora’s documentary connects these images of present-day ruins with Anyox’s sordid past, in which labour exploitation was inflicted in the name of commerce." - Guardian

“With its almost hypnotizing effect, this film strikes a balance between esotericism and urgency that is rarely seen and makes Anyox a breath of fresh air in documentary filmmaking” - International Cinephile Society

"Using historical archival footage and stunning 65mm cinematography, Anyox ties the past together with the present to create a grim yet utterly evocative landscape." - Toronto IFF

"In the 35 and 65mm images, a post-industrial landscape appears to us in splendid desolation....The discoloured landscape then appears as a memorial to human, animal and vegetal lives. Lives trapped between economic forces and state institutions driven by a common interest, far-removed from that of people and nature. The stranded solitary man could well be the last man on Earth" - Cinema du Reel

"a testimony not only of a history of labor union resistance...but of the catastrophic residual nothingness that is to be found after the exploitation of the land." - Desist Film

"Sifting through history is never an immobile act, it always involves the mediation of touch and sight" - Open City Documentary Festival