Garbage Dreams
Encyclopedia
Garbage Dreams is a 2009 feature length
documentary film
produced and directed by Mai Iskander. It premiered at the 2009 Phoenix Film Festival
on April 3, 2009. Later the same month, it won the Al Gore Reel Current Award.
, Arabic for "garbage people." Far ahead of any modern "Green" initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling
80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.
on April 3, 2009. Later the same month, it showed at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival where it ran in the US Documentary Competition and won the 2009 Al Gore Reel Current Award. It showed in over 30 film festivals in the United States, including the Woodstock Film Festival
, the Hollywood Film Festival
, the Bel Air Film Festival
and the Seattle International Film Festival
. Garbage Dreams showed in Europe at the twenty-second International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and in the Middle East at the Dubai International Film Festival
.
Al Gore
presented the 2009 REEL Current Award to the documentary Garbage Dreams at the Nashville Film Festival
. Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate and the writer of An Inconvenient Truth
, presents the award annually to a film that gives outstanding insight into a contemporary global issue.
Gore said of the film, "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."
In Variety
Ronnie Scheib called the film "Stunning debut ... [Iskander's] lensing grants her subjects immense dignity (they never appear "other" in their poverty) and her film its curious beauty."
In her review in The New York Times
, Jeannette Catsoulis said "Expertly weaving personal fears, family tensions and political action, 'Garbage Dreams' records the tremblings of a culture at a crossroads."
In The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck wrote "Championed by Oscar winner Al Gore and the spur for a million-dollar donation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Garbage Dreams could ride its sociological importance to Oscar recognition."
In The Village Voice
Andrew Schenker called Garbage Dreams a "handsomely shot and intermittently fascinating look at Cairo's Zaballeen community."
Feature length
Feature length is motion picture terminology referring to the length of a feature film. According to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a feature length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes to be eligible for an Academy Award.The term may also...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
produced and directed by Mai Iskander. It premiered at the 2009 Phoenix Film Festival
Phoenix Film Festival
Phoenix Film Festival is a festival that celebrates feature films and their creators. The celebration takes place annually in the city of Phoenix, Arizona...
on April 3, 2009. Later the same month, it won the Al Gore Reel Current Award.
Synopsis
Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world's largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen, also spelled as ZabbaleenZabbaleen
The Zabbaleen are a minority religious community of Coptic Christians who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors for approximately the past 70 to 80 years. Zabbaleen means "Garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic...
, Arabic for "garbage people." Far ahead of any modern "Green" initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.
Release
Garbage Dreams premiered at the 2009 Phoenix Film FestivalPhoenix Film Festival
Phoenix Film Festival is a festival that celebrates feature films and their creators. The celebration takes place annually in the city of Phoenix, Arizona...
on April 3, 2009. Later the same month, it showed at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival where it ran in the US Documentary Competition and won the 2009 Al Gore Reel Current Award. It showed in over 30 film festivals in the United States, including the Woodstock Film Festival
Woodstock Film Festival
The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was begun in 1999. The festival was first conceived as a part of the Woodstock '99 Music and Arts Festival, with movies being screened as part of that event.-History:...
, the Hollywood Film Festival
Hollywood Film Festival
The Hollywood Film Festival is an annual Film festival which is located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Festival was established in 1997 by Carlos de Abreu and his wife, model Janice Pennington....
, the Bel Air Film Festival
Bel Air Film Festival
The Bel Air International Film Festival, first held in 2008, is an annual international film festival which takes place in Bel Air and the greater Los Angeles area...
and the Seattle International Film Festival
Seattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival , held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees...
. Garbage Dreams showed in Europe at the twenty-second International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and in the Middle East at the Dubai International Film Festival
Dubai International Film Festival
The Dubai International Film Festival is an international film festival based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Launched in 2004, it aims to foster the growth of filmmaking in the Arab world.-Overview:...
.
Critical reception
Former U.S. Vice PresidentVice president
A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
presented the 2009 REEL Current Award to the documentary Garbage Dreams at the Nashville Film Festival
Nashville Film Festival
The Nashville Film Festival , held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2009, Nashville Film Festival received close to 2000 submissions from 86 countries, programmed nearly 260 films and had an attendance...
. Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
Laureate and the writer of An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
, presents the award annually to a film that gives outstanding insight into a contemporary global issue.
Gore said of the film, "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."
In Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
Ronnie Scheib called the film "Stunning debut ... [Iskander's] lensing grants her subjects immense dignity (they never appear "other" in their poverty) and her film its curious beauty."
In her review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Jeannette Catsoulis said "Expertly weaving personal fears, family tensions and political action, 'Garbage Dreams' records the tremblings of a culture at a crossroads."
In The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
Frank Scheck wrote "Championed by Oscar winner Al Gore and the spur for a million-dollar donation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Garbage Dreams could ride its sociological importance to Oscar recognition."
In The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
Andrew Schenker called Garbage Dreams a "handsomely shot and intermittently fascinating look at Cairo's Zaballeen community."
Awards
- Al Gore REEL Current Award 2009 (winner) at the Nashville Film FestivalNashville Film FestivalThe Nashville Film Festival , held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2009, Nashville Film Festival received close to 2000 submissions from 86 countries, programmed nearly 260 films and had an attendance...
- Humanitas Award 2009 (winner) at the International Documentary AssociationInternational Documentary AssociationInternational Documentary Association , founded in 1982, is a non-profit organization promoting documentary film, video and new media, to support the efforts of documentary filmmaking and video production makers around the world and to increase public appreciation and demand for the art of the...
Documentary Awards - Best Documentary 2009 (winner) at the Hollywood Film FestivalHollywood Film FestivalThe Hollywood Film Festival is an annual Film festival which is located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Festival was established in 1997 by Carlos de Abreu and his wife, model Janice Pennington....
- Best Documentary 2009 (winner) at the Lone Star Film Festival
- Best Documentary 2009 (winner) at the Landlocked Film FestivalLandlocked Film FestivalLandlocked Film Festival is an annual film festival hosted in Iowa City, Iowa. The Festival was founded in 2007. Landlocked Film Festival was created to support independent filmmaking by bringing the best of independent world cinema to the American heartland, by providing workshops led by experts...
- Best Documentary 2009 (winner) at the Bermuda International Film Festival
- Best Documentary 2009 (winner) at the Vail Film FestivalVail Film FestivalThe Vail Film Festival is a four-day film festival that has taken place annually in late March or early April in Vail, Colorado since 2004. The 2011 Vail film festival took place March 31 - April 3 in Vail, Colorado...
- Best Documentary 2010 (winner) Ashland Independent Film FestivalAshland Independent Film FestivalThe Ashland Independent Film Festival is a film festival in Ashland, Oregon, United States that has been presented by the non-profit Southern Oregon Film Society since 2001. Founded by D.W. and Steve Wood, the festival is held each spring over five days at the Varsity Theatre in downtown Ashland...
- Best International Film 2010 (winner) Santa Cruz Film Festival
- Best Editing 2009 (winner) at the Woodstock Film FestivalWoodstock Film FestivalThe Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was begun in 1999. The festival was first conceived as a part of the Woodstock '99 Music and Arts Festival, with movies being screened as part of that event.-History:...
- Golden Palm 2009 (winner) at the Mexico International Film Festival
- Human Spirit Award 2009 (winner) at the Ojai-Ventura Film Festival
- Best Cinematography 2009 (winner) at the Rhode Island International Film FestivalRhode Island International Film FestivalFlickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival takes place every year in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island as well as satellite locations throughout the state. Started in 1997, the Festival is produced by Flickers, the Newport Film/Video Society & Arts Collaborative, a 501 non-profit...
- Best Green 2009 (winner) at the Connecticut Film Festival
- World Cinema Best Director 2009 (winner) at the Phoenix Film FestivalPhoenix Film FestivalPhoenix Film Festival is a festival that celebrates feature films and their creators. The celebration takes place annually in the city of Phoenix, Arizona...
- World Cinema Audience Award 2009 (winner) at the Phoenix Film FestivalPhoenix Film FestivalPhoenix Film Festival is a festival that celebrates feature films and their creators. The celebration takes place annually in the city of Phoenix, Arizona...
- Silver Screen Award 2009 (winner) at the Nevada Film Festival
- Jury Award (winner), Merit Award for Awareness (winner), Merit Award for Cultural Message (winner), Merit Award for Educational Value (winner) at the 2009 Montana Cine International Film Festival
- Special Jury Prize for Muhr Arab Feature Documentary (winner) Dubai International Film FestivalDubai International Film FestivalThe Dubai International Film Festival is an international film festival based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Launched in 2004, it aims to foster the growth of filmmaking in the Arab world.-Overview:...
- Special Jury Award (winner) Sebastopol FIlm Festival
- Tornio Provincial Special Award (winner) Cinemambiente
- Youth Prize, Special Mention (winner) Squardi Altrove
- Nominated for the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentaries (winner) Directors Guild of AmericaDirectors Guild of AmericaDirectors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
Award - Best Feature Length Film (winner) Eco Films Rodos
- Green Doc Award (winner) Dokufest Kosovo Film Festival
- Shortlisted for Academy Award Documentary Feature 2009
External links
- Garbage Dreams at PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....