Could You Find Thanksgiving Dinner in the Trash? Alex Mallis Documents Dumpster Diving in SPOILS

What does a grocery store do with food deemed to be “unsellable” — when a bag is torn or a can damaged, or when items are past their sell-by date? In many cases charities can’t accept such food. So this otherwise perfectly good — or at least partially good — food ends up in the dumpster out back. What kind of people show up to dig through these discards? Filmmaker Alex Mallis shows they’re sometimes not who you think with his doc Spoils: Extraordinary Harvest. As many of us sit down to (over)consume Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S., watch what happens to some of the food you didn’t — or couldn’t — buy (in this case, here in Brooklyn, NY). Don’t click play if you’re expecting a quick-hit viral video with visual effects; this is a 20-minute documentary starring very real characters. (more…)