Biùtiful Cauntri

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.

A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.

In this documentary Coutinho examines the plight of the people who live off the waste of the Brazilian cities. These people make their living by scavenging the immense urban garbage dumps searching for whatever they can find to sell as well as whatever they can find to eat.

Maura is a black woman, mother of 7 children and recyclable material collector in one of the largest cities in Latin America. While she works hard to maintain herself, she has to deal with prejudice, invisibility and the ignorance of those who do not recognize the value and important role of the recyclable material collector bring to the city, as an environmental agent.

Artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss create the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. The pair used found objects to construct a complex, interdependent contraption in an empty warehouse. When set in motion, a domino-like chain reaction ripples through the complex of imaginative devices. Fire, water, the laws of gravity, and chemistry determine the life-cycle of the objects. The process reveals a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, and improbability and precision, in an extended science project that will mesmerize the mind.

María and Isabel are two women in their fifties who, like many others, recycle in Quito, where there is no recycling system. María leads a collective fight for basic labor rights; while Isabel transmits her knowledge of environmental care while she raises her daughters.

Right outside of Moscow – home to the highest number of billionaires pr. capita – you’ll find the largest junkyard in the world: The Svalka. It’s a hard place run by the Russian mafia. And it's where Yula lives with her mother, her friends and many other people. Life is tough in the Svalka, but it’s also a place where beauty and humanity can arise from the most unlikely conditions. It is from this place that Yula dreams of escaping and changing her life, even if it seems impossible. Oscar-nominated director Hanna Polak followed Yula for 14 years, bringing us along on Yula's journey to achieve this dream.

Im Reich Des Squatters

Every km of ocean now contains an average of 74,000 pieces of plastic. A 'plastic soup' of waste, killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year and leaching chemicals slowly up the food chain. In Holland, scientists found plastic in the stomachs of 95% of all fulmar birds. In Germany, plastic has been found to affect the reproductive systems of animals, while in the US, conservationists are seeing increasing numbers of dolphins die in agony, their guts blocked with rubbish. What will be the long term impact of this 'plastic pollution'? Can anything be done to clean up our oceans?

Report on vandalism

Follow the Manhattan-based Beavan family as they abandon their high consumption 5th Avenue lifestyle and try to live a year while making no net environmental impact.

Omondi lives in the biggest slum in East Africa. Everyday he sees airplanes fly over him. He dreams of becoming an airline pilot and flying far away.

Waste Not is a film about where your garbage goes, who sorts it for you, and what it is worth if it isn't just tossed into landfill. It's easier and cheaper to retrieve gold from old computers for instance, than to dig it up. Organics can be used to create fertiliser and green electricity and yet each Australian sends half a tonne of food waste to landfill each year where it is contaminated with chemicals and e-waste. We recycle only 50% of all our waste. There is an alternative to environmental apocalypse and we don't have to wait for the politicians to make it happen. All we really need to do is be creative and use our imaginations to turn this waste into wealth again. Waste Not talks to scientists, workers at waste depots, environment campaigners, gardeners and even a famous chef about how easy it is to save the planet by simply recycling properly.

Villagers in Turkey's Black Sea village of Camburnu struggle with the government's decision to turn their community into a garbage dump.

A powerful visual journey into the heart of a gut-wrenching environmental tragedy, while delivering a profound message of healing and renewal.

Tom the Bottleman is a heartwarming documentary that tells the story of Thomas Morrison, a quiet yet resilient figure in Brunswick, Maine, who has spent over a decade walking the town’s streets collecting bottles and cans. More than a means of survival, Tom’s daily routine represents his deep connection to the community around him. When his essential cart was stolen in 2024, the town responded with unexpected generosity, coming together to support one of their own. Directed by Jake Jakubowski, this film captures the power of perseverance, the beauty of small-town solidarity, and the profound impact of everyday kindness.

Exploring America’s consumption of computers and the hazardous waste we create in pursuit of the latest technology, Terra Blight traces the life cycle of computers from creation to disposal and juxtaposes the disparate worlds that have computers as their center. From a 13-year-old Ghanaian who smashes obsolete monitors to salvage copper to a 3,000-person video game party in Texas, Terra Blight examines the unseen realities of one of the most ubiquitous toxic wastes on our planet.

Produced by Alfred Higgins Productions with assistance from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Academic Support Center Film Library, Keep America Beautiful, Inc., and Keep Los Angeles Beautiful, Inc., the 1963 short film A Land Betrayed examines the various ways people have spread the “cancer of ugliness” across America and offers call-to-action solutions to combat the nation-wide problem.