These compilation films are part of a research project on the idea of ‘filmmakers as metallurgists’. Filmmakers and artists bend and shape our collective consciousness by mining the archives of our audio-visual past and by forming and transforming audio-visual memories. Filmmakers and artists, however, are not just smiths of sorts in a metaphoric way. By focusing on metals, these films not only draw attention to the metals inside the materiality of our media, but also to the immaterial connotations of metals. Each film follows a particular metal (tin, mercury, lead, gold, silver, iron, and copper). from the mines across their metallurgic transformations into objects, images and stories that have constructed (and still construct) our world. Each metal makes a journey from the geological depths of the earth into planetary orbits. Below are the seven films of this alchemical metal series.