Landfill Harmonic, Cateura, Paraguay

 

Cateura, Paraguay is a town essentially built on top of a landfill.  When orchestra director Szaran and music teacher Favio set up a music program for the kids of Cateura, they soon had more students than they had instruments. That changed when Szaran and Favio were brought something they had never seen before: a violin made out of garbage. Today, there's an entire orchestra of assembled instruments, now called The Recycled Orchestra.  The film Landfill Harmonic is directed by Juliana Penaranda-Loftus and Alejandra Nash.

Memory Serves Nostalgia for the Light

High atop the Atacama desert plateau, astronomers peer into the heavens observing phenomena that took place millions of years ago from distant stars while elderly women search the desert for the remains of their kin, "disappeared" under Pinochet's ruthless dictatorship.  Both the astronomers and the body searchers deal in a world of memory.  Director Patricio Guzmán explores modern Chile's collective memory loss against these intermingled stories, in this beautifully executed documentary.  The only place on earth with zero humidity, ancient mummies and dissidents alike are preserved for eternity.  At one point, the camera pans an abandoned shack for miners, spooons rattling in the wind, recalling scenes from Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.

Miral: Julian Schnabel Sees How the Other Shoe Fits

 

 

In this fascinating film, Julian Schnabel (his mother was President of Hadassah in Brooklyn where he grew up) summons the courage to make a film (2010, Venice Film Festival) about the Arab-Israeli conflict from the standpoint of a Palestinian schoolgirl wirh Israeli citizenship.  Based on the autobiographical novel by the stunningly beautiful Rula Jabreal (international journalist, author), this film was the focus of much criticism upon release.  Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) plays Miral in an uncanny resemblance to Rula Jabreal.  The film also features Willem Dafoe, a U.S. soldier stationed in Israel.  More than anything, it is the story of Miral's relationship with her school teacher Hind Hussein (Hiam Abbass), who taught her how intelligent understanding of the world fosters tolerance.  Schnabel's daughter Stella, plays Lisa, a jewish love interest of one of the Palestinians. 

 

In a wonderful case of life imitating art, Rula Jebreal fell in love with Schnabel while filming, they were in a relationship 2007-2011.  Schanbel is also an artist and is well known for his lavish 11th St apartment Palazzo Chupi in New York.  Obscure Pete Townshend song "So Sad About Us" (Scoop album) appears in scene between Miral and Lisa.