Losers and Winners

Globalisation can radically change the balance of power. LOSERS AND WINNERS by Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken tells of such a change. They show the consequences using the example of the Kaiserstuhl coking plant in the Ruhr area. After only eight years of operation, the ultra-modern coking plant, which cost 1.3 billion marks, was shut down in December 2000. It was sold to a Chinese company that dismantled the coking plant piece by piece in order to transport it to China and rebuild it there. With the acquisition of the coking plant, they acquired the construction plans and can use them to set up numerous new businesses in the Far East.

Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken observed this process closely over a period of one and a half years. It’s a disappearance story. Two worlds collide here. The Chinese’s optimism about the future meets the self-sufficiency of Europeans who mourn the old days. A residential container village is built for around 400 Chinese – with lounges, its own large kitchen including giant woks and a satellite dish for home television. Hungry for the wealth and status symbols of the western industrialised countries, countless dismantling workers accompanied the Chinese project manager and a young translator to dismantle the plant in 60-hour work weeks. Every four weeks, the seven most hard-working are named ‘Workers of the Month.’ The 30 remaining German shutdown administrators have to help logistically and watch as ‘their’ coking plant disappears. There is scepticism and distance towards the foreigners. One of the most powerful scenes is when they discover that Chinese people have tied several ladders together with wire in order to climb a building. Noting that this does not comply with occupational safety, they simply remove the ladders and incapacitate improvised power connections. Such actions, however, cannot put a halt to Chinese-style progress.

Image © Filmproduktion Loeken Franke GbR