Synopsis
Under torrential rains of sparks, blowtorches tear through the thick steel skin of a ship. As they are cut lose, the pieces of metal plummet to the ground with a roar. This is the ship graveyard that serves as the final destination for a significant part of the world's fleet. Here, crows make their nests from pieces of iron wire. In Iron Crows, South Korean documentary filmmaker Bong-Nam Park shows how workers risk their lives for two dollars a day at the world's largest ship demolition yard in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Ekramul is only 12, but poverty is more powerful than the law against child labor. Rufik remembers how it all began back in the 1960s, with a ship that washed ashore. Twenty-one-year-old Bilal barely escapes death with the camera rolling. The impressive footage evokes an atmosphere of menace and danger, but the faces beam when a new ship comes in. Most of the workers send a portion of their meager salary back to their families, and they are proud of that. But Bilal has not succeeded in saving $700 in 10 years, as he had dreamed he would. His visit home to his wife, where he sees his undernourished, blind child for the first time, is heartbreaking.