Educational Media Reviews Online

Paraguay’s “Recycled Orchestra,” consists of young people from the Cateura area outside Asunción, which is next to the city’s landfill. They play instruments made from materials the adults in the community have found in the landfill and reshaped into playable string, wind, and percussion instruments. The project began more than a decade ago when Favio Chávez, an environmental engineer, decided to teach children in Cateura music (which he loved) in his spare time, utilizing a few donated instruments.

Buying enough instruments for all the youngsters who wanted these free lessons was out of the question. After a skilled carpenter among ‘trash pickers’ wondered if the landfill might yield materials for making them, work on building musical instruments out of trash began. YouTube and social media fundraising enabled the group to be heard and money was raised to support more learning (and evidently, good bows), travel for the orchestra (and simple concert clothes), and this well-made film. The kids are pictured struggling to develop the habit of practicing, then rejoicing in the team spirit result when Chávez forms them into an ensemble.

They have their first public performance, first plane ride (to Brazil where they perform, then go to a beach for the first time), first concert in the US (via connections with their favorite heavy metal band, Megadeth) and on to a European tour, then Japan, then more touring South America with Megadeth. Their world, their musicianship, and their fame continues expanding. The families are shown supporting the orchestra and coming together to help each other after a devastating flood. The “Landfill Harmonic” has brought positive change to Catuera and it looks like it is sustainable. Kids are eager to continue their music lessons (and teach music to younger kids) but also to seek more education, which adults (who formed a Parents Association) also now find important for their children. This “educational version” of the program probably softens Cateura’s reality. I have not seen the theatrical version, which is 11 minutes longer.

Awards

• Audience Award at the AFI World Cinema Fest
• BIFF Award at the Boulder International Film Festival
• Inspiring Lives Award at the San Francisco Green Film Festival