I almost forgot! Garbage Dreams is also screening tonight. It is also a documentary and it is also great! It is about garbage.
Here is what I say:
The Zaballeen, garbage collectors of Cairo, are a proud, close-knit community: they collect trash, they sort it, they recycle 80% of what they find. They live in “garbage villages.” This remarkable documentary manages to be both personal and global: when Cairo contracts foreign companies to collect their garbage, the younger generation of Zaballeen is faced with the dual tensions of losing their business and (less explicitly) not wanting to fucking collect garbage anymore. It’s fascinating and, to its credit, not at all sad.
It has been a very good SIFF for documentaries. Some of my friends are very into them, and they’ve been ecstatic, and others are not that into them, and they’ve been pleasantly surprised by how good they are.
It’s probably due to cable TV, actually. BBC, CBC, Discovery, Disney, Showtime, HBO, and so on.
I love this film!!! This movie is a jem! A very rare personal movie, told from the voices of young men.
Al Gore has good taste in movies! Al Gore chose “Garbage Dreams” as the winner of this year Reel Current Award. Former Vice President says,”‘Garbage Dreams’ is a moving story of young men searching for a ways to eke out a living for their families and facing tough choices as they try to do the right thing for the planet. Mai Iskander guides us into a ‘garbage village,’ a place so different from our own, and yet the choices they face there are so hauntingly familiar. Ultimately, ‘Garbage Dreams’ makes a compelling case that modernization does not always equal progress.”
The Zaballeen community’s livelihood is in jeopardy and this film has finally given them a voice.