In 2011, United States filmmaker Mike Ramsdell took the stage at TEDx Bermuda to discuss the mineral exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Four years later, he has returned to the Island for today’s world premiere of his documentary When Elephants Fight, created with the support of Bermudians who he inspired with the talk.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Ramsdell said: “It was through the philanthropic support of a handful of people from Bermuda that this film got made. That’s how the story got told.

“They really made this happen. I can’t say it wouldn’t have happened without them, but I can say it certainly wouldn’t have happened as quickly. It was very much a Bermuda-supported effort to bring this story to light.”

Mr Ramsdell said he first learned about the conflict in 2010 after speaking with a photographer friend who had just returned from the region.

He said that the African nation has suffered a long history of conflict and exploitation because of its mineral wealth, resulting in a small handful getting rich while the majority of the population suffer.

“When Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, it was all about his experiences in Congo,” he said. “Many people mistake the darkness in the title as being the darkness of the Congo or the Congolese, but he was referring to the white man who was exploiting the nation at heinous rates. Unfortunately, that’s still the narrative today, it’s just done in a little more subversive way.

“In the east side of the country, you have more low-scale artillery groups fighting day to day for the mineral resources. They’re conflict minerals — tin, tantalum and tungsten — that are necessary to go into all the electronics that we operate with.

“Eastern Congo is basically void of rule and law, so basically those with the most weapons wins. Although the fighting cannot be solely attributed to the minerals, you can certainly say that any of those armed groups are looking for money, are looking for resources, and the minerals are the fastest and the most powerful way to earn that, so a lot of the fighting happens near the mines. Much like ten years ago when people were raising awareness of blood diamonds, we are trying to do the same thing with conflict minerals.

“In the south things are done a little differently, and that’s actually where most of the Congolese money is being lost. You have the national mining companies who own these massive swathes of the copper belt there. Those swathes, those concessions are being sold off to companies in the British Virgin Islands behind the cloak of secrecy and being flipped for profits of up to 800 per cent to major mining companies.”

While he said members of the Congolese elite are believed to be responsible for the deals, western shareholders are benefiting with consumers buying the electronic devices made with the materials, supporting the exploitation.

It has been estimated that the mining deals have cost the Congolese people as much as $34 billion, while the conflicts have cost as many as six million lives.

“The idea of the film is that if we can bring this to light, if we can get this on people’s awareness radars, then people can start to take action and be a little bit more prudent as a shareholder, as a consumer or as a constituent,” Mr Ramsdell said.

He said he spent four years working on the documentary, with filming in the Congo beginning in 2012. Mr Ramsdell described filming in the Congo as challenging, saying he was arrested on several occasions and had the experience of working with several dangerous armed groups active in the region.

In one memorable incident, he said he was trekking through the bush with members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) after a series of interviews when they came across a group of children playing by a stream.

“They looked up and they saw all these guys coming up over the hill with machine guns,” he said. “The look of horror came over their eyes instantaneously, and they started screaming and scattered into the woods.

“Then it dawned on me that this was a regular occurrence for these kids in this village, that this is a regular occurrence for many people in the Congo. You’re sitting there, playing sticks by a river on a Sunday morning and when you look up you’re surrounded by men with machine guns who mean you significant harm.

“As a father, as a human being, those are the kinds of things — the smell of a hospital, the look on those children’s faces — those are the kinds of things that never go away.”

Mr Ramsdell said that he is looking forward to seeing the reaction to his work, and that he was pleased that the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) agreed to screen the film locally given the contributions made by locals. “To be able to put it in front of people and be able to say this is what we did with the money, this is what we did with all that energy and enthusiasm ... obviously there’s a little fear that it’s going to fall flat, but the response to the film has been fantastic thus far,” he said. “This will be the first time it’s screened outside my living room on the big screen.”

When Elephants Fight will premiere at the Liberty Theatre at 6pm today.