Dogtown Redemption nominated for a 2017 Emmy Award →

I’m thrilled and humbled to announce that Dogtown Redemption is one of five films nominated for a 2017 Emmy in the Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary category! 

When I started this film almost 10 years ago, I had no idea what an incredible impact and reach its message would have. While we’re grateful for the nomination, we want to do everything we can to win.

Help us spread the word by:

• Tweeting your support for Dogtown Redemption

• Sharing this post on Facebook

This nomination is an affirmation that the stories of people like Landon, Jason, and Hayok matter.

With Love and Light,
Amir Soltani

Berkeley Film Festival spotlights local homelessness →

Kali Persall, of The Pioneer, writes about the 2016 Berkeley Video and Film Festival:

"It’s 9 p.m. on Saturday and nobody stirs at the East Bay Media Center. Around 20 film-lovers huddle in the small, brick-lined room that smells like patchouli oil and old wood, while Amir Soltani and Chihiro Wimbush’s powerful documentary “Dogtown Redemption” plays on the screen."

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West Oakland Loses Alliance Metals after Nearly 40 Years →

Despite our campaign and collective offer to raise the funds, services and volunteers to balance neighborhood complaints and concerns with the basic needs of recyclers to earn a livelihood, Alliance Metals is now closed.

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KQED: Advocates Raise Money to Help West Oakland Recyclers →

KQED News reports on recent developments to help recyclers transition through the closing of Alliance Metals (Glass King): "Advocates say they’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars to help slow the closure of a West Oakland recycling center featured in the 2015 documentary Dogtown Redemption.”

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KQED Radio: ‘Dogtown Redemption’ Spotlights Homeless Recyclers of West Oakland →

Amir Soltani, the co-director of Dogtown Redemption, is interviewed on KQED Radio's Forum by Michael Krasny about the film. From April 5, 2016.

Listen Now

City Forcing West Oakland’s Alliance Metals to Close on August 20, But Supporters Argue Recyclers Have No Safety Net →

Sam Lefebvre of the East Bay Express writes: Ask David Larks what he does for a living, and the twenty-year Oakland resident says he recycles. He earns about $1,200 a month selling bottles and cans three to four times a week to Alliance Metals, the red brick building decorated with scrap-metal sculptures in West Oakland’s Dogtown neighborhood. An elderly Black man who used to lay tile professionally, Larks stood next to his bike in front of Alliance recently while his phone charged inside. “If this place closes,” Larks said, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

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Oakland’s Cruel Attack on Homeless Recyclers

Soltani writes, "At a time when homelessness is a nationwide epidemic, Oakland officials are shutting down Alliance Recycling and cruelly depriving poor and homeless recyclers of their livelihood. Since they cannot do so by invoking race and class, Oakland officials are criminalizing an entire class of people by outlawing their profession."

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Oakland Street Recyclers: An AJ+ produced video in support of the SF Homeless Project →

Hundreds of street recyclers are about to lose their income in Oakland. AJ+ produced this report in solidarity with the SF Homeless Project, a coordinated media effort to cover the causes of and solutions to homelessness on June 29.

AMC Bay Street Hosts Screening of Dogtown Redemption Documentary for Emeryville Community →

The E'ville Eye writes about our recent screening for the Emeryville Community: "An estimated 125 Emeryville residents and neighbors turned out on Sunday to watch a documentary that directly intersected their own lives. The documentary featured familiar locations in West Oakland and Emeryville including Pixar, City Hall, Pet Club and Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe as it followed the lives of several recognizable individuals experiencing homelessness in our community. The film documented how they subsist off of the meager earnings from scavenged recyclables redeemed at nearby Alliance Recycling."

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Q-and-A: 'Dogtown Redemption' Recycling and Homelessness Documentary Will Have West Oakland Debut This Saturday →

Express writer Nick Miller recently chatted with Amir Soltani: "The producer and co-director of documentary Dogtown Redemption is letting it all out. He’s passionate. He’s frustrated. He’s disappointed. Why? He made a film about poor recyclers in West Oakland, thousands of low-income or homeless people who shuttle shopping carts full of bottles and cans every day. These recyclers sell their finds off at Alliance Metals, a recycling center that’s been part of the west side fabric for decades, and earn a decent nut. But Alliance is scheduled to close in August..."

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The Controversial Business of Hustling Recyclables in West Oakland

Nadine Ajaka, associate producer of the Atlantic Video, posted a short excerpt from the film.

 "The documentary Dogtown Redemption profiles a recycling center in West Oakland, California, where homeless survive by scavenging metals and plastics for very little money."

Watch the clip.

KBLX Cares: Interview with Amir Soltani and Terry Messman

Sterling James interviews co-Director Amir Soltani and Street Spirit editor Terry Messman about the partnership between Dogtown Redemption and Street Spirit to raise money for the homeless.

Redemption and remembrance →

Globe correspondent Peter Keough reviews DOGTOWN REDEMPTION: "Perhaps this is how the “trickle down” theory of economics works. They are a part of the urban landscape — homeless people with shopping carts overflowing with bags of cans and bottles and other discards to be redeemed for cash at recycling centers."

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How the Other Fifth Lives →

Thomas B. Edsell, from the Opinion Pages of The New York Times, writes about the increasing segregation of affluence: "For years now, people have been talking about the insulated world of the top 1 percent of Americans, but the top 20 percent of the income distribution is also steadily separating itself — by geography and by education as well as by income...."

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Finding Redemption in West Oakland: One Man's Journey Back From the Streets →

Landon Goodwin is featured on KQED News with the short video "The Preacher: Landon's Story," and an article by Adam Grossberg.

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Documentary follows the lives of recyclers in Oakland, California →

Maren McInnes writes: "Amir Soltani noticed people rummaging through the trash cans in West Oakland, California, when he moved there nine years ago. Every night, he heard the rattle of shopping cart wheels rumbling up and down the streets..."

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Hope Amid the Trash →

Divya Amladi writes: "To the recyclers, Alliance is more than a place they can trade in shopping carts full of bottles and cans for money; it is their community center."

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Dogtown Redemption Shines Spotlight on Local Recyclers →

Martti Penttilä quotes Amir Soltani, “The poverty was shocking to me, but also how creative the people were.”

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Street Spirit Partnership →

"It has been said that a film isn't really finished until it is shared with its audience," said Rahdi Taylor, Film Fund Director for the Sundance Film Institute Documentary Program. "The collaboration between Dogtown Redemption and Street Spirit strikes a landmark strategy for bringing this timely film to the audience it was made for."

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Oakland Magazine: Dogtown Redemption Airs on PBS →

"Soltani says he started out making a film about poverty but that it turned into one about love."

Read more.