Monday, March 5, 2012

Eco-Film Night: Blood in the Mobile


With this film, DGL will be taking on new territory: consumer electronics, and, in particular, cell phones.




SYNOPSIS (From the website, http://bloodinthemobile.org/ )

Phones are financing war in DR Congo

We love our cell phones and the selection between different models has never been bigger. But the production of phones has a dark, bloody side.

The main part of minerals used to produce cell phones are coming from the mines in the Eastern DR Congo. The Western World is buying these so-called conflict minerals and thereby finances a civil war that, according to human rights organisations, has been the bloodiest conflict since World War II: During the last 15 years the conflict has cost the lives of more than 5 million people and 300.000 women have been raped. The war will continue as long as armed groups can finance their warfare by selling minerals.

If you ask the phone companies where their suppliers get minerals from, none of them can guarantee that they aren’t buying conflict minerals from the Congo.

The Documentary Blood in the Mobile shows the connection between our phones and the civil war in the Congo. Director Frank Poulsen travels to DR Congo to see the illegal mine industry with his own eyes. He gets access to Congo’s largest tin-mine, which is being controlled by different armed groups, and where children work for days in narrow mine tunnels to dig out the minerals that end up in our phones.

After visiting the mine Frank Poulsen struggles to get to talk to Nokia, the Worlds largest phone company. Frank Poulsen wants them to guarantee that they are not buying conflict minerals and thereby is financing the war in the Congo. Nokia cannot give him that guarantee.

Blood in Mobile is a film about our responsibility for the conflict in the Congo and about corporate social responsibility.




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In addition to the documentary, we'll be launching a new project at Buy the Book to help us stop contributing to the situation Poulsen details:   the Phone Fund!  Please: if you have any old-but-still-functioning cell phones at home that you're willing to donate, bring them in, together with chargers, batteries, accessories, and so on. We'll collect them, sort them by company, and set them out, so that newcomers to Daegu or careless veterans (such as myself) can enjoy being (re)connected without being constrained to buy new phones. Don't  you love it when saving money and saving the environment turn out to be the same thing?






What: "Blood in the Mobile" & Phone Fund Drive
Where:  Buy the Book, Downtown Daegu, 
(Mr. Pizza Building, 4th Floor)
When: Sunday,  March 11, 7PM
Who:  Everyone!
How much: Free!

*Dinner plans are in the works, check back soon!*
*저녁 식사 계획을 짜는 중이니까, 좀 이따가 확인 하시길 바랍니다*
**This time, English subtitles will be available, but no Korean ones.**
**이번 상영에 영어 자막이 있는데 한글 자막이 없습니다.  죄송합니다.**. 



In case you can't wait until Sunday to get started learning about the story of your phone, have a look at "The Story of Electronics," which is available free and in-full online. 



Update: Dinner at the Barley Bibimbap Buffet beforehand! Stuff your face with awesome vegetables before the movie - rendezvous between 5:00 and 5:30PM at Jungangno Station, exit 4.
업데이트: 다큐를 보기 전에 식사를 같이 합시다! 장터한식보리밥뷔페에서 폭식하잔 말입니다. 일요일 5시와 5시반사이에 중앙로역 4번출구에서 만납시다.


1 comment:

  1. This topic is so upsetting but as a human rights issue it is critically important. I wouldn't miss it. The idea for the phone drive is great. Looking forward to this buffet too.

    ReplyDelete