LAHORE: A Pakistani-German film on the Baldia factory fire will have its world premiere at One World Film Festival in Prague, one of world’s largest human rights film festivals.

The film will have its first screening in Prague on Sept 11 in accordance with the 8th anniversary of the fire that took place on Sept 11, 2012.

Discount Workers, a feature length documentary film, follows Saeeda Khatoon from the labour courtrooms in Karachi to different cities in Germany where at one point she demonstrates outside an outlet of the German clothing brand KiK and struggles for justice in European courts. The fire incident at Ali Enterprise in Baldia Town, Karachi, burnt 260 workers in 2012. They were making clothes for KiK.

The film, which is a Pakistani-German co-production, is co-directed by Pakistani filmmaker Ammar Aziz and German filmmaker and lawyer Christopher Patz. Produced by Veronika Janatkova, the film closely observes ordinary working class people who have now turned into extraordinary political activists, having lost their children.

Mr Aziz, who is also a recipient of FIPRESCI and Moscow Doker Grand Prix, says that the film was to be screened in Karachi at the site of the burnt factory on the anniversary of the tragic incident but because of the pandemic, it has been postponed until the situation gets better.

Mr Aziz, known for his acclaimed film A Walnut Tree, says: “Every time we tell someone about this film, the first question is if we have ‘exposed’ the alleged criminals belonging to a political party responsible for the fire. The point is that the Pakistani state, the German clothing brand KiK and the Italian auditing company RINA that, merely three weeks before the fire, awarded the factory with the international SA 8000 certificate which is supposed to guarantee occupational health and safety – all of them want to shift the responsibility entirely on the those who allegedly committed the crime.

“Of course, what they did was horrendous but that should not be an excuse for anyone not to provide safety measures,” he said.

Christopher Patz, one of the two directors of the film, says: “Through this film, we’re able to contribute to a global movement for new laws to hold companies accountable for the human rights and environmental violations taking place in their supply chains and global operations. It’s not right that people in Pakistan die making jeans for Europeans. Now new laws are being demanded by civil society all over Europe, in order to hold corporations to account, and to ensure that overseas workers and communities can use courts in Europe to get justice. This is one of so many similar stories, and we hope and trust it will inspire European citizens to keep pressuring their parliaments to do the right thing, so that we don’t keep having to buy products made with such heinous human suffering.”

Veronika Janatkova, the producer of the film, says, “We read discussions and articles on global supply chain almost every day. Amid this ongoing debate, the focus of the majority is usually somewhere else: on productivity and effectiveness and how to produce quicker and cheaper than ever before, with the price falling down. Most affected are the ones at the end of the production chain. When I got to know about the Baldia Association, it opened a new perspective to me. This initiative, formed by the most vulnerable, is taking a powerful action and aims to shift the paradigm. The unlikely heroes point out the broken procedures and work on bringing the corporations to the court to hold them accountable and take the responsibility. By making this film we want to support the fight for justice in the global supply chain.”

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2020