WASTE LAND a double audience award winner at Berlin Film Festival and Sundance

WASTE LAND a double winner at Berlin Film Festival British/Brazilian documentary secures second audience award

E1 Entertainment International is proud to announce a historic double win for WASTE LAND, directed by Lucy Walker and co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley, which scooped the Panorama Audience Award as well as the Amnesty International Film Prize at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival.

Panorama Audiences were moved to award the film, a co-production between British production company Almega Projects and Fernando Meirelles' Brazilian company O2 Filmes, its second Audience Award, following a win at Sundance in January.

The Berlinale awards for WASTE LAND mark two historic firsts:

• - WASTE LAND also took home the World Cinema/Documentary Audience Award at Sundance, the first time a film has won audience awards at both Sundance and Berlin
• - Lucy Walker becomes the first director to win the Panorama Audience Award twice, having won in 2007 for her previous film Blindsight

In another rare double, Walker had two films screening at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. WASTE LAND screened in Competition, nuclear arms doc Countdown To Zero screened in the Spotlight section.

A thrilled Lucy Walker said: "This is the most fantastic news for WASTE LAND. There are 54 films competing for the Panorama Audience Award, so to win it once is a dream come true, but to win it twice seems almost mathematically impossible - the odds are just so long! I am so grateful to the Sundance and Berlin audiences because the Audience Award is such a vital stamp of approval in order for feature documentaries to reach audiences. And I have always held Amnesty International in the highest possible regard and supported them since I was a teenager, so there's no higher honour than for our work to be recognized by them, it is a beautiful tribute to the catadores of Jardim Gramacho who are the stars of WASTE LAND. We are so happy to be donating our cash award to their Association in order to continue their visionary work."

The Sundance and Berlin Audience Awards mark a triumphant start for new British production company Almega Projects. Producer Angus Aynsley said of the wins for his first completed feature: "I'm so pleased by further strong audience response to our film at Berlinale. I was deeply moved the entire week by the wonderful reactions to the film, which validate our belief in this project during over three years of filming this incredible story of Vik Muniz and the catadores of Jardim Gramacho.  To win the Amnesty International Film Prize is very humbling." 

Charlotte Mickie, Executive VP of International Sales for E1 Entertainment International, commented: "We are so proud of WASTE LAND! The film has an extraordinary capacity to move people through its testimony to the transformative power of art and its homage to the dignity and life-force of the Brazilian garbage pickers who mine for recyclables."

Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of "catadores" - or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz's initial objective was to "paint" the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both dignity and despair as the catadores begin to re-imagine their lives. Walker (Devil's Playground, Blindsight) has great access to the entire process and, in the end, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

WASTE LAND is an Almega Projects and O2 Filmes Production, produced by Angus Aynsley and Hank Levine, and directed by Lucy Walker. The film was co-directed by João Jardim and Karen Harley, and co-produced by Peter Martin. Fernando Meirelles, Miel de Botton Aynsley, Andrea Barata Ribeiro and Jackie de Botton are Executive Producers. The film's soundtrack was composed by Moby.

http://www.wastelandmovie.com/