Garbage Dreams

This documentary tells the tale of three youth, growing up as Zaballeen, a lower-class society of garbage collectors and recyclers in modern Cairo. They survive by selling recycled raw materials sorted from the refuse, and achieve a recycling rate as high as 80% for their efforts. As antagonists, foreign waste disposal companies have recently moved in to "modernize" garbage collection. With a 20% recycling rate but legal right to all trash on Cairo's streets, the two sides face off, the Zaballeen, now lawbreakers, fighting to survive. It's not healthy or glamorous work, but it's their life.

The documentary hypes the environment angle, but there's basis for it. When the local Recycling school gives two of the boys, Nabil and Adham, a chance to travel to Wales to see their modern recycling efforts, they are suprised by the waste in the automated systems.

Each of the youth adopt in their own ways to their changing world, and the documentary follows them for more than two years to see the story to a rightful end. While each of the three choose different paths, Adham steadfast passion for recycling instills in him a sense of restlessness, a lack of place in the new world. He, of the three, clearly wants to travel, find a purpose, and so it was quite pleasant to find that the film producers flew him to Austin for the world premiere of his film. The standing ovation he received was well deserved.

Garbage Dreams
2009, 82 minutes, directed by Mai Iskander