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Over thirty years ago there was a great cyclone in the coastal area of Chittagong, Bangladesh. It was a violent storm with winds whipping over 70 mph, taking with it whatever lay in its path. The next morning, locals were amazed to find a gigantic ship grounded in the middle of the paddy fields, like a beached sat there for years, before people realised they could take it apart by hand, piece by piece, till not even its skeleton remained. That was the beginning of the Shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh. ’The Last Rites’, a silent film by Yasmine Kabir, depicts the Shipbreaking yards of Chittagong, a final destination for ships that are too old to ply the oceans any longer. Every year, hundreds of ships from all over the world are sent to yards in Bangladesh. And every year, thousands of people, many of them migrant farmers from the north, come to these yards in search of jobs. Risking their lives to save themselves from hunger, they breathe in asbestos dust and toxic waste. The elemental struggle b
