Native Montrealer Gab Taraboulsy told Screen Comment,”I just wrapped production on “Recycle Me”, and it was a thrilling experience. In film school, you’re taught pretty quickly to keep things simple and respect the three rules of production: no children, no animals, and no exterior locations. We broke all those rules. As post-production now starts, we’ll see if the gamble paid off.”

Gab Taraboulsy worked in the Canadian entertainment industry for several years before making the move to New York City. In film school at Columbia University, Gab saw the opportunity to put all other worries and responsibilities aside, and dedicate every single day to becoming a better filmmaker and storyteller — a choice that he admits “has a hard cost” but has proven to be incredibly invaluable.

Since starting the program in 2005, Gab has won a Student Emmy and was named one of the country’s Most Promising Foreign Filmmakers by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Gab’s thesis film, “Recycle Me”, is the story of a young, impassioned environmentalist who stops at nothing to shake up his community and educate people on ecological responsibility; ultimately the message of the film is to follow your conviction to do what is right no matter how unpopular it might make you.

The film is being produced in Montreal by three experienced producers; all the cast and crew worked on a volunteer basis. Putting together an independent, low-budget, student film is something that requires months of full-time dedication, heaps of favors, loads of patience, an impossible amount of luck, coming to terms with debt, and the stubbornness that allows you to keep going no matter how far down in the muck your face might get lodged — all for a final product that will be in the neighborhood of 15 minutes.

Wrapping production on one of these films leaves you with the extraordinary sense that you just survived something that should have killed you. That being said, the final product looks like a professional-level film that should have easily cost ten times as much to get in the can. Thankfully, none of the blood, ulcers, anxiety attacks, or other near death experiences that riddled its creation are visible on screen. “Recycle Me” is hopefully the launching pad towards a long career in cinema.