‘The Garbage Man’ Filmmaker Laura Gonçalves On Honoring The Memory Of Her “Exuberant” Uncle

deadline.com:

Filmmaker Laura Gonçalves had the idea for an animated short for a few years, stemming from discussions of her uncle whenever she sees her family at a reunion.

The Garbage Man (O Homen do Lixo) takes place at the dinner table, as the family gathers to remember Uncle Botão, a garbage man who lived through the Colonial War and emigrated from Portugal to France.

Gonçalves was young when her uncle passed away, so she only heard stories about him around the dinner table. For the film, she dove deeper with her family and got a more personal insight into who he was. DEADLINE: Where did the idea for The Garbage Man come from? LAURA GONÇALVES: It was an idea that I developed for a few years before I started making the film.

The first thing that I wanted was to record my family talking about their memories of my uncle, because it’s something that we do every time the family comes together.