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<br />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<br />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
