Salvage
With a massive, unrestricted salvage area, the Yellowknife dump is one of the last and largest open dumps in North America. People from all walks of life go there, to search for everything from tools to clothes to home décor.
The documentary Salvage follows a group of passionate salvagers over five years as the dump evolves and eventually succumbs to the inexorable efforts of city bureaucrats to subject it to sensible regulations and controls. As the dump loses its central place in the town’s civic and social life, the salvagers become increasingly irrelevant. This loss has seismic implications, both for this community of residents, and the identity of Yellowknife itself.
Film Details
Review of Amy C. Elliott’s Salvage
agnes films
“Salvage Review”
Hammer to Nail
“Salvage Review”
Film Threat
“SXSW: Salvage review”
Quelle Movies
“For The Love Of Trash”
Up Here Magazine
“Treasure hunting in the trash: Yellowknife salvagers cheer dump documentary”
CBC News
“SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Amy C. Elliott – “Salvage””
Women and Hollywood
“Off the Route: Documentarian Amy C. Elliott on the ‘apex of consumerism’”
Waste Dive
““Salvage” Mines Trash For Community Treasure”
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven
March 2020
Golden Raven International Arctic Film Festival
Saturday, March 14th
Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Anadyr
Salt Spring Film Festival
Sunday, March 1, 2:30 PM
Salt Spring Island, BC
February 2020
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Monday, Feb 17th, 6:30pm
Hellgate Elks Lodge
Sunday, Feb 23rd, 8:00pm
ZACC Show Room
Missoula, MT
DOCfeed
Friday, February 14th, 1:15pm
LAB-1, Cinema 3
Eindhoven, Netherlands
Alaska Forum on the Environment
Thursday, Feb. 13, 2pm
Anchorage, AK
January 2020
Polar Film Festival
Saturday, January 25th, 9:30am
The Explorers Club
New York, NY
November 2019
CineSol Film Festival
Saturday, November 23rd, 3pm
South Padre Island Convention Center
South Padre Island, TX
Winterer’s Gathering & Arctic Film Fest
Saturday, November 23rd, 3pm
North House Folk School
Grand Marais, MN
Utah Recycling Alliance Annual Zero Waste Awards
Wednesday, November 20 at 6pm
Salt Palace Convention Center
Salt Lake City, UT
Limits of Imagination Film Series
Wednesday, November 13 at 7pm
Penn State University
Happy Valley LaunchBox
State College, PA
Yellowknife International Film Festival
Saturday, November 9th at 7pm
Capitol Theater
Yellowknife, NWT
October 2019
Twin Cities Film Festival
Friday, October 18 at 12:45pm
Wednesday, October 23 at 5:15pm
Minneapolis Showplace Icon Theater
Adirondack Film Festival
Friday October 18 at 3pm
Glens Falls, NY
September 2019
Docuwest
Saturday Sept 21 at 4:45pm
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
Denver, CO
Arctic Film Festival
Saturday, September 14th, 7pm
Longyearbyen Kulturhus
Svalbard, Norway
Michigan State University
Thursday, September 5th, 3pm
MSU Recycling Center
East Lansing, MI
DOCUTAH
Tuesday, September 3rd, 6:20pm
Wednesday, September 4th, 3:20pm
Red Cliffs Theater
St George, UT
June 2019
Free Range Film Festival
Friday, June 28 7:00pm
Wrenshall, MN
SouthSide Film Festival
Friday, June 14 5:20pm
Saturday, June 15 1:20pm
Touchstone Theater, Bethlehem, PA
San Francisco DocFest
Saturday, June 1 7:00pm
Thursday, June 6 9:00pm
Roxie Theater, San Francisco, CA
May 2019
NHDocs
May 31st 9PM
Whitney Humanities Center auditorium at Yale
Northwestfest
May 5th 6pm
Metro Theater, Edmonton, AB
April 2019
IFFBoston
April 28th 3:45pm
Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA
March 2019
SXSW
March 8th
Alamo Ritz
March 12th 8:45pm
Alamo Lamar
March 13th 7:45pm
Alamo Ritz
Amy C. Elliott
Director/Shooter
Amy C. Elliott is a photographer and documentary filmmaker based in New York City. She has been shooting motion and still editorial assignments for over fifteen years, with a particular focus on regional American culture. She directed and shot the feature documentaries Wicker Kittens (2014) and World’s Largest (2010). She was awarded the American Society of Media Photographer’s Best of 2012 honors for The War Within, a major multimedia project for The American Legion, focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. Other clients include The New York Times, American Road and The Public Art Fund. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
Elizabeth Donius
Producer
Elizabeth Donius is a producer, filmmaker and arts administrator. In addition to Salvage, she collaborated with Amy Elliott on the documentary World’s Largest, on several segments for the Independent Film Channel series Split Screen, and on their first film project, the narrative feature Headless. Elizabeth served for many years as the Executive Director of the IFP Chicago, a member-advocacy organization for filmmakers across the Midwest. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where she produced the Children’s Film Festival for the Yale Center for British Art and managed the Community Programs for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, identifying and developing programs at the intersection of the New Haven community and visiting international artists.
Sabrina Zanella-Foresi
Editor
Sabrina Zanella-Foresi is a feature-length documentary editor/producer whose editing credits include: Salvage (2019); Irish Catskills: Dancing at the Crossroads (APT, 2016); The Rise and Fall of Penn Station (2014) and Henry Ford (2013) both for PBS’ American Experience; Photographic Memory by Ross McElwee (2011); Animas Perdidas: Lost Souls (PBS Independent Lens, 2009); The Truth About Cancer (2008); Shadow of the House: Photographer Abelardo Morell, directed by Allie Humenuk (2007);Twisted (PBS Independent Lens, 2007); A Jew Among the Germans (PBS Frontline, 2005).
Bill Staines
Music
Legendary folk musician Bill Staines has been performing and recording for over 40 years. The quintessential folk troubadour plays over 200 dates and travels 65,000 miles annually. Bill’s music is a slice of Americana, reflecting with the same ease his feelings about the prairie people of the Midwest or the adventurers of the Yukon, the on-the-road truckers, or the everyday workers that make up this land. He has recorded 26 albums and his songs have recorded by many artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith and Glen Yarborough. His film music credits include The Return of the Secaucus Seven (John Sayles, 1979) and Salvage (Amy C. Elliott, 2019).
Mike Scholtz
Co-Producer
Mike Scholtz is a documentary filmmaker from northern Minnesota. His first feature-length documentary, “Wild Bill’s Run,” was an Arctic crime caper that screened around the globe as part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. He also produced the competitive jigsaw puzzling documentary “Wicker Kittens,” which premiered at SXSW in 2014. And he co-founded the Free Range Film Festival, an annual celebration of independent cinema that takes place in a rural Minnesota barn converted into a movie theater.
Michele Meek
Associate Producer
Michele Meek is a writer, filmmaker, and professor who has written and directed several award-winning short films. Her most recent short documentary Imagine Kolle 37 (2018), about two girls who imagine their way through a real Berlin adventure playground, has screened at the Institute of Contemporary Art and festivals across the U.S. such as the Independent Film Festival of Boston, Woods Hole Film Festival, and the Free Range Film Festival. She has worked in the media industry in film journalism, distribution, and film festivals, and she has served on film juries including the Coolidge Award, Women in Comedy Festival, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival. She co-edited The Independent’s Guide to Film Distribution (2014) and her edited compilation Independent Female Filmmakers: A Chronicle through Interviews, Profiles, and Manifestos was published in 2019 with Routledge. For more information, visit www.michelemeek.com.
