The film, which she made with her producer Mike Glad, was about the Guatemala City garbage dump, where people lived in cardboard houses and worked sifting through trash. Despite the wretched conditions, the small community has survived for more than 50 years, its inhabitants ranging from children to parents and grandparents.
The other film to be shown is “Downstream,” which was submitted for Oscar consideration for 2009, Iwerks said.
“It didn’t get nominated, but it was one of six that got shortlisted,” she said.
The film’s subject centers on the multibillion-dollar Oil Sands industry in Alberta, Canada, Iwerks said. It features interviews with Dr. John O’Connor, who jeopardized his career fighting for the lives of the aboriginal people who he believed were dying of rare cancers caused by living downstream from one of the most polluting oil operations in the world, she said.
Yoga Tree owner Todd Jensen, who graduated from John Burroughs High School, met Iwerks in an extracurricular TV production class during their high school years, and they have remained friends.
Jensen invited Iwerks to show her documentaries because he believes there is a correlation between yoga philosophy and the compassion for one’s fellow man these films create, Jensen said.
“First and foremost, these are brilliant films from a world-class filmmaker, which offer searing, heartbreaking, ultimately uplifting looks at the way human beings band together in the face of deep and long-lasting adversity,” Jensen said.
“Yoga is, in part, about developing compassion for ourselves and others, and films like Leslie’s help that process. These films will entertain you, but they will also grow your heart and expand your mind.”
The interesting thing was, Iwerks said, the Alberta Film Fund granted the filmmakers $64,000 to make the film. But after it was nominated for Oscar consideration, the Canadian government tried to censor it, she said.
“[The Canadian government] was relieved it wasn’t nominated,” Iwerks said.
It got a screening in Canada and raised awareness there and then it was seen in countries throughout Europe, Iwerks said.
Now she is expanding the short into a 75-minute feature film that will be released in the next couple of months.
