Genre Documentary

From Trash to Treasure (2020)

Item: From Trash to Treasure
Rating: 2.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★½ — From Trash to Treasure (2020)

From Trash to Treasure (2020) is a short documentary running just twenty-four minutes, produced through Cultures of Resistance Films and co-produced across Brazil, Bulgaria, the United States and Lesotho. At its centre is Nthabiseng TeReo Mohanela, an artist and educator working in Lesotho, the small, landlocked highland kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa. Her project, which shares its name with the film, teaches young people to transform discarded and waste materials into clothing and accessories, a practical creative act that carries a broader social argument about resourcefulness, sustainability and self-worth. The film uses her work as a launching pad to look more widely at a generation of Basotho artists, musicians, filmmakers and farmers responding to the country's social challenges through creative reinvention.

The director is Iara Lee, a Brazilian-American filmmaker whose career has been defined by a sustained commitment to activist and socially engaged documentary work through her production company Cultures of Resistance Films. Her output tends to focus on communities that rarely receive mainstream screen time, and Lesotho, a country often overlooked in international media, fits squarely within that project. At twenty-four minutes, this is a short-form piece rather than a feature documentary, which shapes what it can and cannot do with the material it finds. Those interested in other documentary work from the 2020s may want to look at Megdan: Between Water and Fire or the earlier Nom Tèw, another documentary the blog has covered that sits in a similar tradition of community-focused non-fiction filmmaking.

The subjects of the film are largely young people living in communities shaped by the long shadow of the HIV/AIDS crisis and significant economic hardship, and the film frames their creative activity as both personal expression and collective resistance. Alongside TeReo Mohanela's fashion work, the film profiles musicians writing about climate change, filmmakers addressing child marriage, and farmers preserving endangered tree species through seed collection. It is a broad canvas for a short runtime, and that tension between scope and duration is worth bearing in mind going in. For context on what grassroots documentary filmmaking from this part of the world can look like, the blog's review of Next Goal Wins offers another angle on community and identity told through a non-fiction lens, while Candomblé in Togo is another Brazil-connected documentary title covered here that deals with cultural practice and identity.

A-Z World Movie Tour Lesotho Trash to Treasure is the kind of documentary that starts with a spark of real promise, bright-eyed kids in Lesotho turning scrap into art, tackling big themes like poverty, HIV, and sustainability, but ends up feeling like a school project that never quite reached its final draft. The concept is brilliant. We follow a group of young people learning to create fashion and crafts from discarded materials, all while navigating life in communities still reeling from the HIV/AIDS crisis and widespread economic hardship. The film opens with some powerful moments, raw interviews, personal stories, a sense of urgency, that suggest we’re in for something deep and meaningful. But then… it never digs deeper. Themes are introduced with the emotional weight of a sledgehammer, only to be dropped almost immediately. One minute we’re hearing about a teen’s experience growing up HIV-positive; the next, we’re watching her stitch together a dress made from plastic bags. That said, there’s undeniable charm in the subjects themselves. These kids are resilient, creative, and full of spirit. Watching them turn literal trash into wearable art is inspiring, even if the narrative around it feels a bit hollow. And visually there are moments of real beauty with vivid colours against bleak backdrops, hands at work shaping something out of nothing. Worth watching if you’re interested in grassroots social initiatives or youth-led creativity in under-resourced communities. But don’t expect a tightly woven story or profound insight. It’s a noble effort that leans on heart more than structure.

And that tension between genuine heart and structural looseness is what stays with me most. The subjects here are doing something real and worth celebrating, and I found myself wishing the film had given itself more room to sit with any one of them for longer, even if that meant leaving some of the others out entirely. A tighter focus might have let the emotional weight land properly rather than glancing off. Still, as a brief window into a creative community that rarely gets any screen time at all, it earns its twenty-four minutes. Sometimes the subject carries the film. Here, it very nearly does.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2020 | Watched: 2025-07-08

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for From Trash to Treasure (2020) on YouTube

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