This punchy short film highlights the challenges faced by informal recyclers in South Africa by telling the stories of three reclaimers in ‘the city of gold’.
Pictured above are stills from The Reclaimers short film which was screened at the Neelsie Cinema on 11 October. PHOTO: Supplied/Sifiso Khanyile
The Covid-19 pandemic came with a silver lining for informal waste reclaimers, said Luyanda Hlatshwayo, a reclaimer who is a part of the African Reclaimers Organisation in an interview with MatieMedia.
Hlatshwayo is one of three waste pickers who featured in The Reclaimers, a short film which screened at the Neelsie Cinema on 11 September as part of the Neelsie Cinema Film Festival. The festival forms part of the 2022 Toyota US Woordfees.
The film focuses on the impact of the pandemic on waste reclaimers in Johannesburg by telling the story of three Johannesburg-based waste reclaimers.
Sifiso Khanyile, the director and producer of the film, recently flew to Los Angeles to collect first prize in the international Three Acts of Goodness Micro Film Contest, for The Reclaimers.
The personal and political
The film weaves political commentary about the issues faced by informal recyclers through personal stories about the struggles, ambitions and reflections of Johannesburg-based reclaimers.
“The beauty and brilliance of observational documentaries is you allow the characters or the subjects to speak for themselves. You give them full authority to speak on a particular subject. These are their experiences,” Khanyile told MatieMedia.
The roughly 9 000 informal recyclers in Johannesburg each recycle between 200kg and 250kg of material daily, which takes a significant load off of the authorities, says Luyanda Hlatshwayo, a reclaimer who is a part of the African Reclaimers Organisation, in the The Reclaimers short film. PHOTO: Supplied/Sifiso Khanyile
“What you find in them talking about their aspirations and their needs is a very honest depiction of your subject without filters, and for me this is what works well for the documentary,” he said.
Perilous in a pandemic
Informal recyclers were not classified as essential workers during the pandemic despite the important role they play in the waste management industry.
This lack of formal recognition is a theme which runs through the film. Reclaimers’ status as non-essential workers compromised their job security during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the documentary focuses specifically on reclaimers in Johannesburg, Luyanda Hlatshwayo explained to MatieMedia that there is a lot of commonality in the problems faced by reclaimers across the world. AUDIO: William Brederode
However many informal recyclers still operated and picked up slack left by more formalised waste management structures, Hlatshwayo told MatieMedia. This meant residents recognised the work done by reclaimers in a way that hadn’t before, he said.
“The residents see the reliability and the value of the work that we put in, and without Covid they wouldn’t have seen that,” said Hlatshwayo.
Verdict?
Not only is The Reclaimers beautifully shot, but it also provides an important guide for how to paint individual stories of struggle, triumph and ambition on the great tapestry of SA’s political landscape.
An intimate focus on individual stories provides a much stronger insight into the value that informal waste pickers provide to society than any statistical analysis might yield.
The 20 minute short film will be screened again at the Neelsie Cinema at 12:30 on 14 October, according to the Woordfees program.