EISENFRESSER

The playground of director Shaheen Dill-Riaz's youth was the erstwhile white beaches of Chittagong in Bangladesh. Today the area is a graveyard for ships where thousands of workers, his old friends included, work on the wrecks with primitive tools, salvaging raw materials. "When you are hungry, you can eat anything", says Karim, the director's former schoolmate, "even when it is iron." While the Western media report of the destruction of the environment and dangerous working conditions, for the so-called 'iron-eaters' the most important thing is to survive.

"I tried to get close to them and to show the world through their eyes. It is not just the methods of work that makes this world so peculiar, but the admirable strength that these people have… It is exhausting, life-threatening work. It is actually not possible, but they achieve it anyway – and have done for many years." Shaheen Dill-Riaz