Mai Iskander 2009 | 79 minutes

'Garbage Dreams' follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world's largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen, Arabic for "garbage people." Far ahead of any modern "Green" initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community. AL GORE, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Academy Award winner and former Vice-President of the United States, says: "'Garbage Dreams' is a moving story of young men searching for a ways to eke out a living for their families and facing tough choices as they try to do the right thing for the planet. Mai Iskander guides us into a 'garbage village,' a place so different from our own, and yet the choices they face there are so hauntingly familiar. Ultimately, 'Garbage Dreams' makes a compelling case that modernization does not always equal progress."