Plastic Bank Manila
Plastic Bank is an international organisation improving lives in impoverished communities by building an ethical recycling ecosystem for ocean plastic. Our documentary shows the project from both sides: the people who carry the system, and Greiner Packaging as the industrial partner.
A week of shooting in the Philippines, a sensitive subject, real people in hard circumstances. The challenge: a film that shows reality without exploiting it, and that makes the economic logic of circular economy as clear as the human stories behind it. In this kind of project, preparation matters just as much as improvisation on location. Both are needed, both have to hold up.
We accompanied the collectors, didn't stage them. Working through the barangays of Manila – the slums where many of the workers themselves come from – we encountered deeply moving stories. Preparation: interview questions, planned locations, planned shots. On site: the willingness to let all of that go when reality told a different story. In parallel, the industrial perspective: what does circular economy look like in practice from Greiner Packaging's side? That way, the narrative wasn't invented in the edit suite, and every communication goal was still met.
Two versions: a director's cut that gives people space, and a brand version for corporate communications. A film that works equally well at festivals and in internal contexts. For us, one of the most intense, hardest and most rewarding projects we've taken on. And proof that authentic sustainability communication only works when a company truly means it.
