Located just outside Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho, Brazil, is the world’s largest garbage landfill. Modern artist Vik Muniz works with so-called “catadores”, the men and women who pick through the refuse, to create art out of recycled materials. Muniz selects six of the garbage pickers to pose as subjects in a series of photographs mimicking famous paintings. In his desire to assist the “catadores” and change their lives, Muniz finds himself changed as well. Director Lucy Walker’s documentary WASTELAND (2010, 99min) is an eye-opening trip to a part of the world where garbage serves as liquid currency for people who salvage dignity from degradation with intelligence and grace.

English. Free Entrance.