Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials.
In Waste Land, acclaimed filmmaker Lucy Walker (Blindsight, Countdown to Zero) travels with cutting-edge Brazilian artist Vik Muniz deep into the world’s largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio to create a large-scale art project using garbage as his material and the spirited trash pickers as his muses.
Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives.
Director Lucy Walker (DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) has great access to the entire process and, in the end, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.
WASTE LAND, Almega Projects’ inaugural feature documentary, won the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at Sundance 2010 as well as winning both the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Award and the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlinale 2010.
The film has gone on to win over 15 major awards at a host of international film festivals. WASTE LAND is a UK/Brazilian co-production in partnership with O2 Filmes (CITY OF GOD), Brazil’s largest film production company.
