Deservedly nominated at this year’s Oscars as Best Documentary Feature, Lucy Walker’s life-affirming film travels to the squalor of Rio de Janeiro, which boasts the largest landfill site in the world.

Hundreds of people make a meagre living by sifting through the detritus as it tumbles off the back of trucks, risking life and limb to clamber through other people’s waste in search of plastic, metal and other recyclables that could put food on the table for their children.

International artist Vik Muniz is inspired by these people to embark on a daring art project, collaborating with some of the workers to create giant canvases from the discarded materials, with the intention of selling off the finished artworks.

In the process, Muniz uncovers the remarkable true stories of these humble people and he also transforms some of them into unlikely stars of the modern art world.