LOSERS AND WINNERS

The Kaiserstuhl coke factory in the Ruhr Valley, Germany's former industrial heartland, provides the setting for a remarkable story of two groups of people from two sides of a cultural divide, who are brought together for a common task – the breaking down of the decommissioned state of the art factory into movable pieces to be shipped back to China and rebuilt by its new owners.

30 German employees tasked with overseeing the process of disintegration of their former workplace are all that remain from the 800 people who used to work in the factory. They were joined by 400 Chinese workers who set up home in a village of housing containers and toiled for 60 hours a week on the project.

Almost inevitably cultural clashes, mutual suspicion and misunderstanding between the Chinese workers and their German supervisors abounded as their emotions and attitudes towards their common project were poles apart. The fate of the Kaiserstuhl factory and the people affected by it, highlights wider issues about winners and losers in a globalised world.  

"The Chinese came to Dortmund to accomplish something: namely, to procure a factory that in technical terms would put them ahead by decades and grant them a secure future. The Germans, by contrast, were involved in a process of destruction – they had to help dismantle their own workplace. For the one side, the breakdown is a step to a brighter future, while the others are losing something they thought would always be there for them." Ulrike Franke

Awards
Best International Documentary HOT DOCS Toronto 2007!
Best Film, One World Festival Prague 2007