Critical Reception
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore presented the 2009 REEL Current Award to the documentary Garbage Dreams at the Nashville Film Festival. Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and the writer of An Inconvenient Truth, presents the award annually to a film that gives outstanding insight into a contemporary global issue.
Gore said of the film, "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."
In Variety Ronnie Scheib called the film "Stunning debut ... lensing grants her subjects immense dignity (they never appear "other" in their poverty) and her film its curious beauty."
In her review in The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis said "Expertly weaving personal fears, family tensions and political action, 'Garbage Dreams' records the tremblings of a culture at a crossroads."
In The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck wrote "Championed by Oscar winner Al Gore and the spur for a million-dollar donation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Garbage Dreams could ride its sociological importance to Oscar recognition."
In The Village Voice Andrew Schenker called Garbage Dreams a "handsomely shot and intermittently fascinating look at Cairo's Zaballeen community."
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