Waste Land – another fabulous film for Corrie

On Monday 6th August Corrie Film Club will be showing a film called Waste Land, also in Corrie & Sannox Village Hall at 8pm.

Waste Land records how a Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz, spent two years working with the scavengers who pick anything usable from the vast Jardim Gramacho rubbish dump in Rio de Janeiro. The original Portuguese title is Lixo Extraordinário, which means Extraordinary Garbage – and the story is indeed extraordinary.

With the help of these people, Muniz creates from landfill trash large-scale mosaic portraits, recognised as so impressive that they are sold at art auctions in London and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. The film shows the lives of the garbage pickers and their working conditions as well as the way working with Muniz helped them to gain recognition and better living conditions.

The showing is planned to coincide with a visit of NAC waste awareness officers, who will be at a series of Arran events to offer advice about recycling. Zero Waste Volunteer Co-ordinator Claire Owens points out that food waste costs the average family £430 a year. To the rubbish pickers of Rio, that would be staggering richness. And even for us, it’s a lot to throw away