All That Perishes at the Edge of Land: dir Hira Nabi (2019)

Before the Ocean Master met its demise at the Gadani shipbreaking yards in Pakistan, filmmaker and artist Hira Nabi gave it a voice and staged conversations between the vessel and the labourers dismantling it. The stories exchanged between the workers and the ship allude to the hazards and toxicity that affect the workers and the sea.

Inspired by the 1959 book Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire) by Urdu writer and poet Qurratulain Hyder, Nabi incorporates insights from discussions with her mother, as well as ideas from Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor and poems by the left-wing Pakistani author Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

The screening runs for 30 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A session conducted in Urdu, Hindi, and English.