Film Screening of "The White Gold of Greenland" and Q&A with Naja Dyrendom Graugaard

• See the documentary and attend the Q&A via Zoom

The White Gold of Greenland (Grønlands hvide guld) is a Danish documentary film from 2025, directed by Claus Pilehave and Otto Rosing. The film examines the history behind the Danish extraction of cryolite in a mine in the village of Ivittuut, located in the southern part of Greenland. Large quantities of this ‘white gold’ were shipped to Denmark and the United States between 1854 and 1987.

The film challenges the traditional view of the relationship between Denmark and Greenland and has attracted considerable attention in Denmark and Greenland, initially sparking heated debate. Traditionally, Denmark has been regarded, not least by the Danes themselves, as a ‘benevolent colonial power’ that has spent large sums of money over the years on modernising Greenlandic society and lifting the local population out of poverty. The film challenges the notion that Greenland has been nothing but an economic burden for Denmark, arguing instead that Danish society has profited greatly from the extraction of Greenlandic natural resources, especially cryolite, and that it is therefore perhaps Denmark that is indebted to Greenland.

Naja Dyrendom Graugaard is a Danish-Kalaaleq (Inuk) researcher with an expertise in past and present colonial relations between Denmark and Kalaallit Nunaat. Her research attends to alternative, decolonial, intersectional, and Indigenous narratives, Kalaallit lived experiences, land relations, and Inuit knowledge systems. She often draws on auto-reflexive, arts-based, and collaborative approaches to research as ways to unsettle and decolonise research. Her research also contributes to the public dissemination of Nordic colonial histories through workshop facilitation, a film documentary, and creative engagements.