Danish documentary maker Frank Piasechi Poulsen’s BLOOD IN THE MOBILE takes us on a most compelling journey into the underworld of Congo’s minerals trading. The film’s input is not, though, the exposition of Congo’s troubled circumstances per se, but the rather troubling relations that Western companies have with Congo. Poulsen thus sets out to investigate the moral principles behind the world’s most successful mobile company Nokia on the basis that its products may contain a mineral fetched from the mines in the Walikali area of Congo: Poulsen’s scrutiny focuses on whether Nokia knows or not that its success feeds on the death of thousands of exploited Congolese people and also contributes to finance what is known as the bloodiest conflict since World War II.

… the juxtaposition of these two experiences eloquently unveils the vicious face of business.

Poulsen’s film goes back and forth between his brave attempts at obtaining a meeting with the chief executive’s team at Nokia at the headquarter in Finland and his trips to Congo and the mines’ workings: the juxtaposition of these two experiences eloquently unveils the vicious face of business. When eventually Poulsen manages to get into one of the mines, the chaos of the voices shouting against the filming camera and the harsh noises of the minerals’ extraction within a cramped and potentially crumbling underground space brings Dante’s imaginary circles of the damned to life. But, is Nokia’s orderly, upright and ice-cold response to Poulsen’s questioning less brutal than Congo’s inferno?

BLOOD IN THE MOBILE is currently screening at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.  Book tickets here.