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The Cobalt Hell documentary unveils the dangers of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This mineral is essential for making gadgets like smartphones and laptops, and necessary in transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The sad part is people who supply this mineral are not likely to benefit from cobalt's unique properties any time soon. Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the bulk of the world's cobalt is found, are forced to extract and process the ore by hand, which causes serious health problems and environmental pollution. The minerals are cleaned in river water, which pollutes it. Though there is no specific research, there's a direct correlation between some widespread illnesses among mineral mine workers and the overall health level of the population.

Also, a lot of children work in quarries and pregnant women. Children exposed to cobalt ore often have a problem with delayed growth. They either grow slower or, at some point, stop growing at all. As for pregnant women, there are occasional deformities in newborns. So if a pregnant woman is working in a quarry, her baby might have fetal abnormalities or be stillborn.

Watch the film to get more perspective on the situation. ²

Directed by Stanley Kramer. Written by William and Tanya Rose. Actors: Spencer Tracy, Edie Adams, Milton Berle, Buster Keaton, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, Terry-Thomas, Peter Falk, and others. In the USSR - from March 9, 1966. Re-release in the USSR-1985. 24.2 million viewers in the first year of the screening.

Director Stanley Kramer (1913-2001) was a true favourite of the Soviet film distribution: "Bound by one chain", "Reap the Storm", "The Nuremberg Trials", "It's a Crazy, Crazy, crazy, crazy world", "Bless the animals and children", "Oklahoma as it is", "The Domino Principle"... What other American directors could boast so many of their films on the screens of the USSR?

And all this is because S. Kramer was officially considered a progressive foreign cinematographer, denouncing the vices of bourgeois society and a friend of Soviet cinematographers…

In the adventure comedy "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world", the main characters are determined to find a large sum of money buried somewhere in Rosita Beach…

Released to the All-Union film distribution rather quickly, the film "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world" was a resounding success among teenagers and young people who reached the "American way of life" at least with the help of the screen. However, the adult audience was not averse to laughing and relaxing on this masterfully made tape, without delving into the "revealing" and "social" motives of this picture by S. Kramer.

Already at the turn of the 21st century, film critic Tatyana Zarapkina wrote that the comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", made with a large production scale, occupies a special place in Kramer's work, "the director looked for the seed of comedy not so much in the plot of the comedic character of the performers, but in comparing his picture with the classic American comedy of the silent period.- x years. The film, replete with tricks, farcical and Guignol episodes, ridiculed human weaknesses and, most importantly, the passion for getting rich, which deprives people of reason" (Zarapkina, 2000: 71)

This film occupies a special place in my own memory. I must have been around 6 years old, when my dad, excited by the re-screening of one of his own favourites from his teen years, drove us to a Drive-In theatre in Durban, South Africa. Due to segregation laws at the time, we were not permitted to enter the grounds, so we watched parts of it from a distance. The iconic scenes from this film still spark memories of that night. I hope you enjoy this film as much as I always do. (Thomas)