Cruel Logic of Exploitation
The documentary "Iron Eaters" presents the tough reality of the ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh. Sonja Ernst had a look at Shaheen Dill-Riaz's award-winning film
When work is an ordeal, stoicism is the only answer: a ship-breaking industry peon in a scene from Shaheen Dill-Riaz's "Iron Eaters"
The leviathans of the seas rise majestically from the sand of a beach in the south of Bangladesh. Old oil tankers and container ships await their slaughter – the unwanted waste of the "First World". In the cutaway wrecks echo the deafening sound of hammers and the calls of the welders far across the sand. Bit by bit, the old ships are broken up.