Keswick Film Club - Waste Land

Synopsis

Leading contemporary artist Vik Muniz, born poor in Brazil, goes back home to work with the catadores, the rubbish-pickers of Rio. In collaboration with director Lucy Walker (who made Blindsight) he creates portraits of some of them, using recycled materials they pick as his materials – and the resultant sales of the pictures changes their lives. So it's a film about recycling, about art and the artist – for Walker is careful to keep a sympathetic distance from Muniz - and about the lives of the recyclers themselves.