"Garbage Dreams" IFC Run Extended Thru Jan 19

New York, January 6, 2010--In her debut documentary, Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander tracks the lives of three Egyptian teenage boys, Adham, Osama and Nabil, who live in Mokattam, a garbage village outside Cairo. They belong to the Zaballeen, a subculture of about 60, 0000 Coptic Christians who, for over a century have been collecting and recycling the trash of Cairo's 18 million people. Formerly Cairo had no municipal sanitation system; now they have hired 3 international waste disposal companies from Spain and Italy. The Zabaleen's source of raw material, way of life and means of survival is therefore threatened. And while the
Zaballeen are able to recycle 80% of the trash they collect, the multinationals' contract only requires them to recycle 20%; the rest is landfilled. "Garbage Dreams" is both a coming of age story and a portrait of a close-knit community. A poignant, entertaining and enlightening film, it is now playing at IFC Center in New York City. It has won 17 festival Best Documentary awards including the Reel Current Award selected by
Al Gore at the Nashville Film Festivval and has been shortlisted for an Oscar. The Daily Motion video was filmed by Liza Béar. For more info go to www.garbagedreams.com