Hira Nabi
All That Perishes at the Edge of Land
Hira Nabi All That Perishes at the Edge of Land
Hira Nabi All That Perishes at the Edge of Land
Where do ships go after their final journey? Hira Nabi's docufiction film is set on the Gadani beach in Baluchistan, Pakistan, where condemned vessels are dismantled. The workers are mostly migrants who have come to the yard through desperate circumstances to find work. They extract high-quality timber and iron from the shipwreck, raw materials that are brought back into the local economy. The remaining material is sorted to sell as scrap metal. It is hard and dangerous work, with no financial security or safety standards.
The ship Ocean Master engages in an imaginary dialogue with these workers. The conversation moves between dreams, yearnings for home and the violence embedded in the act of dismantling such large vessels. As the workers recall the homes and families they left behind, their long workdays blend indistinguishably into one another and they are forced to confront the realities of a type of work where mortal danger is ever-present. What lies in one’s future, given such circumstances? The film looks at workers’ lives, the exploitation of labour, and the ecological damage caused by prosperous Western industries that dump waste in other regions of the world. It asks us to consider the costs, and to assign responsibility.