Overburden

Overburden is a feature documentary set in the mist-shrouded Nimba Mountains on the Liberia–Guinea border, where rare wildlife and local communities reclaim a landscape scarred by mining. Today, this fragile recovery faces a new threat: a global steel company using conservation promises to brand a new mining venture as green.

Founded in the wake of war, the East Nimba Nature Reserve shelters some of West Africa’s most endangered species. With exclusive, on-the-ground access, Overburden follows rangers, scientists, and forest defenders, including ranger Moses Darpey, biologist Grace Kotee Zansi, chief park warden Catherine Kuku Dolo, and community leaders Saye Thompson and Dada Konkah, who tend the land, protecting endangered species and sustaining livelihoods as a billion-dollar company falls short of promised support. They are joined by Shadrach Kerwillain, a Liberian conservation biologist and Mnqobi Mamba, a bat scientist from Eswatini, who navigate the tangled frontier where mining meets conservation and where memory, science, and power collide.

The film captures their intimate encounters with the mountain’s extraordinary inhabitants, from the only true viviparous toad found nowhere else on Earth to resilient cave-dwelling bats and adaptive chimpanzees. Grace works to reconcile clashing farmers and chimpanzees through coexistence strategies. Moses searches for the rare Nimba toad on high peaks, while Mnqobi revisits a cave to see if the bats he helped relocate as part of the company’s biodiversity offset program are still there.

Overburden tells a powerful story of resilience and transformation in a landscape shaped by an invasive industry yet alive with possibility. Through vivid cinematography and deeply rooted storytelling, the film follows communities and nature enduring and adapting in the face of relentless global forces. Overburden celebrates the power of mutual aid, showing how people and ecosystems persist, rebuild, and thrive against overwhelming odds.

Free admission! Sponsored by the Institute for African Development and the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment.

Part of our "Campus Collaborations" series. Courtesy of Alchemy Films, Ltd. and Toad and Mountain Productions, LLC.