BadCompany from Simon Sharp on Vimeo.

Producer/Director: Simon Sharp
Associate Editor: Poul Madsen (Bombay Flying Club)

Bad Company is a story shot in the brick factories of Kathmandu, Nepal. Factories in which scores of children as young as 5 are sent to work, often as labourers and as donkey boys (shepherds) in order to pay off gambling debts borne by drunk uncles and fathers or to earn money for the very basics of life, food and water.

Once there they become bonded and institutionalised for years to come. The kilns envelop them physically and emotionally as bodies are broken and dreams dashed.

It is here they will grow into men. However, what kind of men is moot as nuture in the kilns is one of a lawless, peerless underworld in which children not only witness but also feel the wrongs done to their elders as the psychology and the pain inflicted on others is passed down the line to them, weak and defenceless as they are. In turn they learn how to inflict pain on to a body even less powerful, the animals themselves.