Chichester Cinema at New Park
Garbage Warrior
CHICHESTER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Directed by British architect and film-maker Oliver Hodge, Garbage Warrior is a portrait of innovative American architect Michael Reynolds, who has spent 30 years in Taos, New Mexico, working on experimental sustainable housing that uses waste material (bottles, plastic containers, tyres) to retain heat.
Instead of encouraging him and his dedicated team, the county officials and then the state sought to close down his unconventional operations. They are eco-friendly, cheap to live in, but not, it happens, within US building regulations. So, over several months, we follow Reynolds's frustrating campaign to persuade the Senate suits to permit him to save the planet.
Eventually he lost his licences to practise locally and nationally. But the bureaucrats and legislators changed their tune and started to sing green songs when Reynolds came to the rescue of the homeless of Indonesia and the Andaman Islands after the tsunami and of Mexican peasants after Hurricane Katrina.
This is a wonderful portrait of a scruffy, larger-than-life, hippie-ish architect with irrepressible energy & a true “little guy against the system”.
(Tickets £7)
UK · 2007 · Oliver Hedge · 86min
