Today’s Video: Art from Trash

After thirty-four years of operation the Jardim Gramacho landfill in Rio de Janeiro will be shut down.

The closing of the massive open-air dump comes just over two weeks before the start of the Rio+20 environmental summit.

The move is expected to leave more than 1,700 people out of work including hundreds of "catadores," garbage pickers who would sift through mountains of trash seeking recyclable materials.

Local authorities claimed former workers will get compensation of about $7,000 and will be retrained. Yet one local community leader was reportedly skeptical:

Nuestro Cine: Trash to treasure

Earlier today the nominees were announced for this year's Academy Awards. Mexican entry “Biutiful” was nominated for nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Spaniard Javier Bardem was nominated for Best Actor for his role in that movie.

While “Biutiful” hopes to become the second consecutive Latin American movie to win top foreign film honors (Argentina's "The Secret In Their Eyes" won last year), another film set in the region hopes to win its Oscar. Documentary film “Waste Land” examines how art can be born through ingenuity and imagination. The film focuses on an art project wherein the self-described “pickers of recyclable materials” at the the world’s largest garbage dump in Brazil create self-portraits by using garbage. Their artwork reveals details of the lives as unique people with unfulfilled aspirations but also deep emotions and personal pride.

“Waste Land” faces very stiff competition in the Best Documentary Feature category from “Exit through the Gift Shop” from street artist Banksy and from war documentary "Restrepo". Nonetheless, it has already won numerous awards on the film festival circuit and enjoys a 100% rating from critics according to the Rotten Tomatoes website.

We touched on “Waste Land” last August but it’s worth featuring again in light of today’s nomination. Here is the trailer for a documentary worthy of being named one of the best of the year and deserving of the Oscar:

Video Source - YouTube
Online Sources- CBS News, Rotten Tomatoes, The Latin Americanist, Official website for “Waste Land”

Nuestro Cine: Trash to treasure

On Thursday the shortlist of the fifteen films in the running for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar was revealed. Among the favorites to win the prized stautette are The Tillman Story, Waiting for ‘Superman’, and Exit Through The Gift Shop as well as a unique film set in Brazil.

Waste Land tells the tale of a project created by Brazilian expat artist Vik Muniz with the garbage pickers from Rio de Janiero's largest landfill. Muniz helped the "catadores" create portraits of themselves using the thousands of pounds of trash they sort through on a daily basis. The film shows the hardships the "catadores" go through (they earn their living by finding and selling scraps of recyclable materials) and the impact art can have on people. In addition, as was written in The Documentary Blog:

The result is a touching but controversial project that has the artist and his partners questioning the effects of interfering with the lives of these people. Will giving them a taste of life outside of the landfill provide them with unrealistic hopes? Will returning to picking devastate them? The film is shot quite nicely and Moby provides a wonderful score. Definitely worth checking out.

Directed by Britain's Lucy Walker, Waste Land may be a dark horse candidate to win the Oscar next February. Nevertheless, it is a very compelling and thoughtful documentary as you might be able to appreciate in the trailer below:

Video Source - YouTube via The Documentary Blog
Online Sources - The A.V. Club, BBC News, The Documentary Blog