Film im Forum

Welcome to Sodom

What happens to our electrical appliances once we’ve thrown them away? Many of them are shipped illegally to Ghana – to Agbogbloshie, on the outskirts of the metropolis of Accra, one of the most polluted and toxic areas on earth. Around 6,000 women, men and children live and work there. They call the place ‘Sodom’.

Children and teenagers break up electronic waste in the open air; new raw materials are extracted by melting old cables, creating clouds of pitch-black smoke. The film “Welcome to Sodom – Your Smartphone Is Already Here” (2018) by Florian Weigensamer and Christian Krönes gives a face and a voice for the first time to those people at the very bottom of the technology age’s value chain, and takes viewers behind the scenes of Europe’s largest rubbish dump in the heart of Africa. The focus here is not on the mechanisms of the illegal e-waste trade, but on the living conditions and fates of people at the very bottom of the global value chain.

Following the screening, we will be discussing with the directors and experts from the circular economy and sociology, amongst other things, the film’s lasting impact, which approaches might be conducive to solving the problem, and the responsibility we bear as consumers for living conditions in places such as Agbogbloshie.

In keeping with the WDC’s theme, ‘Atmospheres for a better life’, we are delighted to be joining forces with the FEdA’s Rhein-Main Documentary Film Nights and the Hessian Documentary Film Festival to present a WDC special in Darmstadt. As always, there’ll be popcorn on hand when the Schader Forum auditorium is transformed into a cinema.

Accessible Entry. Directions: https://www.schader-stiftung.de/service/route

FEdA’s Rhein-Main Documentary Film Nights and the Hessian Documentary Film Festival