Teenage Wasteland is a documentary about a documentary. The original film, Garbage Gangsters and Greed, was made by Middletown High School teacher Fred Isseks and the students in his English class. That 1996 film documented their dogged investigation of a toxic landfill. Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine first heard about Garbage Gangsters and Greed in 2020. They wanted to document the process of making the original film. Connecting with Isseks confirmed the story’s appeal.
“He just has a kind of magical quality,” says Moss. “You see it in the film, and we felt it very powerfully. His mantra of civic courage was something we wanted to hear at this moment in time, given how turbulent our country and our politics are.”
Isseks was derided as “Hippie Fred” by some of his peers—one former student interviewed for the film says that other educators referred to him as a “crackpot.” But Isseks armed his students with cameras and entrusted them with a Socratic goal: Seek out the truth. “You don’t learn by sitting in the classroom taking notes,” he says in the film. “You learn by doing.”
Because area residents reported sludgy tap water, the students wondered whether chemicals from the landfill could be leaching into the soil and drinking water. They were. Soil samples contained dangerous concentrations of ammonia, arsenic, and toluene, a potential nerve toxin. Yet, despite their evidence, the students had a hard time getting anyone to see their film or respond. Reporters didn’t take them seriously. Nor did local officials. Still, they persisted, attending town hall meetings and speaking up. Again and again.
“That’s not something a lot of high school kids do,” says McBaine. “To have them learn by doing so, that really is the fundamental reality of belonging in a democracy. You have to be energized to act. You have to believe you have a part to play in that democracy. And to me, that’s the most effective thing that happened here.”
Eventually the students enlisted the help of Congressman Maurice Hinchey, who launched an investigation that uncovered illegal dumping and criminal ties to the waste disposal business.
Issek’s students were not necessarily political before taking his class, but they were energized by their mission. For Teenage Wasteland, the filmmakers interviewed many of Issek’s students involved in the making of the original documentary, who speak about how their involvement in the project changed them. “We were meddling kids, making a documentary,” says a former student in the film. “That felt really powerful.” For McBaine, the most powerful line in the film happens toward the end. It happens when Issek says, “I told my kids to act as if you live in a real democracy.”
“It’s the power of journalism, the Fourth Estate, which is eroded in our culture to the detriment of our society and our democracy,” says Moss. “We recognize how vital it is, whether it comes from the New York Times or a group of student journalists. A young journalist can root out the story and bring it to light.”
Although not all of the environmental concerns were addressed, the students’ efforts did sideline plans to build a school and a park near the polluted site. That was a win. For Moss and McBaine, their film is primarily a coming-of-age story. You win some. You lose some. You have to try. Sometimes you have to keep trying.
“Ultimately, it was okay for us that they didn’t have a tidy, neat, happy ending with the project,” says Moss. “It was really ultimately about their relationship to each other and to Fred and their investigation.”
Change is hard, says Moss, and there are powerful forces to battle. Not getting a feel-good blockbuster movie ending doesn’t mean you stop fighting.
“The reality is you’re up against very powerful systems that don’t easily relinquish their own power,” said Moss. “That’s the unfortunate truth here. Maybe not in a lot of Hollywood fiction, but in the truth of political struggle. We wanted to be true to that reality.”
The original documentary did raise awareness of garbage dumps, a subject people don’t like to think about. “People have really magical thinking when it comes to throwing things away, whether it’s household garbage or toxic garbage,” said McBaine. “Shining a light in dark places is part of what journalism does. So, to make the unknown known is a big part of their project.”
As documentary filmmakers, the duo enjoy stories that might easily be forgotten. “I am interested in the history that disappears if no one tells it,” said Moss. “And Fred had a pile of tapes in his basement that would’ve been tossed in a landfill, frankly, if we hadn’t recognized that there was a value to telling that history.”
Moss and McBaine are the Emmy and Sundance award-winning filmmakers behind the documentaries Girls State,Boys State, and Mayor Pete. Teenage Wasteland opens at Upstate Films on January 9. Teacher Fred Isseks joins for a Q&A after the 4:45pm screening on January 10.
