One woman, one van, 12 minutes that'll wreck your definition of waste.
“Olive” is a short documentary that follows Olive Hagemeier, an energetic woman, on her daily routine of salvaging, repackaging and redistributing food, and occasional other types of “waste”, across Atlanta, GA. Presented in a quiet observational style, this film is both a character study of a committed and enigmatic volunteer, as well as an ethnographic work that places the audience in the heart of a decentralized, volunteer-run mutual aid network in a “post-COVID” American city.
Direction
Omelchenko's vérité restraint lets Olive's presence fill the frame
Editing
12 minutes that trust you to connect the dots
Director
Lev Omelchenko
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Olive's work exemplifies the explosion of mutual aid networks that organized informally during COVID-19 and refused to disband.
The film was shot entirely within a five-mile radius of downtown Atlanta, yet maps an invisible city most residents never see.
US
