Garbage Dreams
Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys: Adham, a bright, precocious 17 year-old, Osama, a charming impish 16 year-old, and Nabil, a shy, artistic 18 year-old who were born into the trash trade and grew up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. It is a world folded onto itself, an impenetrable labyrinth of narrow roadways camouflaged by trash. It is home to 60,000 Zaballeen (or Zabbaleen), Egypt’s “garbage people.”
For generations, the residents of Cairo have depended on the Zaballeen to collect their trash, paying them only a minimal amount for their garbage collection services. The Zaballeen survive by recycling the city’s waste. These entrepreneurial garbage workers recycle 80% of all the garbage they collect, creating what is arguably the world’s most efficient waste disposal system.
When the city they keep clean suddenly decides to replace the Zaballeen with multinational garbage disposal companies, the Zaballeen community finds itself at a crossroads. Face to face with the globalization of their trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.
Winner of over 20 awards globally, including The Al Gore Reel Current Award, Garbage Dreams is a “moving story of young men searching for ways to eke out a living for their families and facing tough choices as they try to do the right thing for the planet.” – Al Gore
In Arabic with English Subtitles
A Thousand Suns
For most of us, there is a distinct separation between humans and nature. In the fertile African Rift Valley in the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia, their interconnectedness is the essence of spirituality. But outside forces are threatening this delicate balance, from Christian evangelists to Western aid agencies importing agricultural technologies and pesticides.
