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From Tiffany Schauer, April 2009

“I am visiting Nashville to attend the Nashville Film Festival with Mai Iskander the filmmaker of the documentary Garbage Dreams Garbage Dreams is a documentary that follows the people that live in the dumps outside Cairo and their challenge to survive as Egypt modernizes its garbage disposal system. Mai tells the story by accompanying three young boys that live in the garbage as they develop into young men. It is a poignant film about the human face and triumphant dignity of the people that live in our world’s trash.

I stayed at the Union Station Hotel (1001 Broadway; 615-726-1001). The hotel is a grandly resorted, 19th-century railroad station. The memories and spirit of the elegant train travelers that passed through this building are palpable. Our first whistle stop was the Bluebird Café (4104 Hillsboro Pike; 615-383-1461) for some lunch and outstanding music. There, we met up with Holly Williams, Hank Williams granddaughter, for a chat about the film festival, music and what’s going on in Nashville. Holly is not only a talented musician, songwriter, and performer, but also a style maven. She turned us on to her clothing boutique, H. Audrey (4127 Hillsboro Pike; 615-760-5701) and home store across the street from the Bluebird. Her clothing store is stuffed full of cool treasure and off-the-hook boots…..we really wanted the boots.

Later in the evening, we attended the Southeastern Premiere of Garbage Dreams. Prior to the film showing Mai was presented with the Al Gore Reel Current Award! The Reel Current Award winner is chosen each year by Al Gore for a documentary at the Nashville Film Festival that provides extraordinary insight into a contemporary global issue. We celebrated Mai’s honor at the sushi restaurant Shintomi (2184 Bandywood Dr.; 615 386-3022), in the Green Hills area of Nashville. Al Gore was unable to attend the award ceremony. He is meeting with us on Friday to talk about the film.”

Read Tiffany’s other postcards form around the world, including the “latest from the Nashville Film Festival:/passions/2/departments ”, Philanthropy in the Dominican Republic, Dispatch from a Thai Aid Mission, The rice of Rice at a Burmese Orphanage and about her travels in Sicily.

Read a Q&A with filmmaker Mai Iskander about Garbage Dreams