Waste Land

No, not T.S. Eliot’s poem.

This:

The film the Huffington Post called the slumdog millionaire of documentaries.

It's Brazil’s bid for an Oscar in this year’s competition.

I have written before in this space about Vik Muniz. http://tinyurl.com/6x8yrex

If you have a high-speed connection, and you missed that post, I suggest you click on the above link and go there for some background information about this outstanding artist.

Waste Land, the film, follows Vik from New York City, where he now lives, to the splendor of Rio de Janeiro in his native Brazil.

And on into the heart of Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest garbage dump.

Jardim Gramacho receives, every day, in excess of 7,000 tons of trash – more than any other landfill area in the world.

The site is constantly being picked over by a small army of catadores, scavengers, who eke out a precarious existence from what they can salvage from the refuse.

The squatter community bordering the landfill has grown to 13,000 people – all dependent upon an economy that revolves around the trade of recyclable materials.

Vik’s idea was to “paint” portraits of the scavengers composed of elements drawn from the detritus.

He based a number of them on classic works.

Here, for example, is Muniz’s photo reference for the image you see in the poster above. It's a portrait of the catador Sebastião Carlos dos Santos...

...based upon this original: 

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David.

Last month, Waste Land won the award for the Best Documentary at the Sundance film festival.

Lucy Walker, the director, accepted the award for the cast and crew.

Lucy and Vik have high hopes for the film in Hollywood at the end of this month. 

Please click the button to hear his voice in this three-minute trailer:

 Leighton - Monday