Waste Land

A documentary. The Brazilian-born, New York-based artist Vik Muniz goes to Jardim Gramacho outside Rio, one of the largest landfills in the world. There he meets the catadores who collect recyclable material and decides to make their portraits: he enlarges the photographs and rebuilds them out of material pulled from the rubbish, then sells them and gives the money to the community. Lucy Walker shot over three years. While the film is about art's power to change a life, it keeps one question open: is it fair to send people back to that world afterwards?