- Documentary western drama about the last days of the hypnotic community of plastic bottle collectors aka bottlemen at one of the biggest unsanitary landfills in the world.
- On top of a world known archeological site from the Neolithic Age, lies the biggest Balkan landfill, Vinca. Unsettled by inextinguishable fires, this toxic landscape is a workplace for a community of plastic bottle collectors, known as BOTTLEMEN. Through intimate portraits of its members, we follow this group, led by YANIKA, a former boxer. BOTTLEMEN arrive with dreams of earning big money, but the landfill becomes their new home and prison at the same time. We witness the ups and downs of this group and their eventual break up, which will leave YANIKA working all alone and distant from his family. Faced with the transformation of the landfill, the entire community of BOTTLEMEN is counting its last days.
- Vinca is a suburb of Belgrade. But seven thousand years ago, some of the largest settlements in Prehistoric Europe were right here. What was once a cradle of European civilization now holds up a mirror to our contemporary, overconsumption- fuelled lifestyle, as one of the largest unsanitary landfill sites in Europe spreads across the Stone Age site, covering it in mountains of waste. A community of mostly Roma workers known as 'Bottlemen' make a precarious living on these unstable mountains of toxic, steaming - sometimes burning - waste. Working in gangs like wolf packs, they compete to pick out the 'plastic gold' of used bottles for recycling. Moving from sweeping total shots of the stunning apocalyptic landscape - where clouds of toxic gas and gigantic swarms of foraging gulls eclipse the workers, and even the huge mechanical excavators crawling across its surface - Bottlemen focuses in on the 'wolf pack' led by timid former boxer Yanika. In a calm, observational style, the film paints an intimate portrait of Yanika and his pack as he struggles with leadership, his faraway family and the constant chaos of working the treacherous landfill mountains. As they work, drink, play and live together, Yanika and his men fall into an existence on autopilot, often forgetting why they came here in the first place. Ultimately the strains of balancing family and financial commitments and leading his unruly pack start to tell on Yanika. Cracks appear, and he finds himself in an even more precarious position, working alone. Then news hits that the landfill is to be modernized, throwing everyone's future into doubt... Bottlemen is a homage to a vibrant, essential and yet largely invisible community, as well as an eco-western and a stark contemplation of where our society is headed, as we see how this particular group of human beings is thrown onto society's ever- growing garbage heap.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content