Waste Land

Full Frame Audience Award Feature 2010

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