Waste Land
NEW DOCS
Artist Vik Muniz is renowned for making portraits out of unusual objects—sugar, dirt, peanut butter, chocolate syrup. Here, filmmaker Lucy Walker follows Muniz as he returns to his native Brazil—to Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world, outside Rio de Janeiro. His plan is to create portraits, constructed entirely out of garbage, of the catadores who pick through the rubbish for recyclable items, and to give the profits from their sale back to his subjects. One of the most moving aspects of the project is the relationships he forms with the garbage pickers, as first he takes carefully posed photographs of them, and they in turn join him in the construction of their portraits, transforming huge reproductions of the original photo into collages of trash. The result is a complicated interplay of artistic process, collaboration, and responsibility to one’s subject. Visually striking, the film moves between vast images with panoramic scope and close-ups in vivid detail, holding the human drama and the magnificent artwork in exquisite balance. ST
Directors
Lucy Walker, João Jardim, Karen Harley
Producers
Angus Aynsley, Hank Levine
Editor
Pedro Kos
Cinematographer
Dudu Miranada
Release Year
2010
Festival Year
2010
Country
United Kingdom, Brazil
Run Time
98 minutes