Synopsis
Hotel Coolgardie is a portrait of outback Australia, as experienced by two backpackers who find themselves the latest batch of “fresh meat” to work as barmaids in a remote mining town.
Hotel Coolgardie
Director
Producers
Editor
Cinematography
Executive Producer
Studios
Country
Primary Language
Spoken Languages
Alternative Titles
호텔 쿨가디, 库尔加迪酒店
Genre
Themes
Releases by Date
Premiere
-
Canada
Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival
23 Jan 2017
-
USA
Slamdance FIlm Festival
Theatrical limited
22 Jun 2017
-
New Zealand
Theatrical
10 Jun 2016
-
Australia
Digital
01 Dec 2017
-
Australia
-
UK
07 Jan 2018
-
USA
Releases by Country
Australia
10 Jun 2016
- Theatrical
01 Dec 2017
- Digital
Canada
01 May 2016
- Premiere Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival
New Zealand
22 Jun 2017
- Theatrical limited
UK
01 Dec 2017
- Digital
USA
23 Jan 2017
- Premiere Slamdance FIlm Festival
07 Jan 2018
- Digital
Popular reviews
More-
-
I couldn't tear my eyes away from this one, it was like a real-life Wake in Fright and it is a documentary that I highly recommend watching.
Steph and Lina are two Finnish twenty-something backpackers who, having been robbed of all their money in Bali, need to find gainful employment. An agency sends them to the mining town of Coolgardie, where they are to work as barmaids in the Denver Hotel pub. It quickly becomes clear to them - and we, the audience - however, that pulling pints is considered the least of their duties. This is the hardworking and hard drinking Australian outback, where barmaids are clearly expected to 'entertain' the bored and frustrated, emotionally stunted, functioning alcoholics who…
-
Recommended by Kyle as this was the doc that Kitty Green’s recent The Royal Hotel was based on. As nightmarish as The Royal Hotel was, a surprising amount was pulled directly from Hotel Coolgardie. It’s absolutely insane what happens to Lina at the end of this though, and I can’t imagine what a horrible experience that would have been.
Credit @Steve Hughes with the Bacon Number
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 2
Kate Neylon (producer) and Anthony LaPaglia in Below
2. Anthony LaPaglia and Kevin Bacon in He Said, She Said -
A frighteningly real insight into the darker side of Australian machismo and vile misogyny. I've never experienced more cultural cringe regarding my own country (and my home state) in my whole life.
There's a palpable sense of dread to the very simple format of the weekly title cards rolling on by, knowing that each one will be worse than the last, and seeing these women (Lina and Stephie) become more and more cornered and coerced by the men of the town. Similarly, it's deeply saddening to hear the stories that strike at the hearts of the vulnerabilities of these men, stories all too quickly covered up with mentions of violence out of fear of appearing like a "softcock".
Hotel Coolgardie is a wonderful and dark slice of Australiana - Lina, Stephie and Pete Gleeson see pointedly into this often sinister heart. -
I’m seeing The Royal Hotel this week and wanted to check this out first to see what this whole story was about. I cannot believe this is an actual true story documentary. Like, people such as these ones actually do exist? I’m so happy that as an Australian there is no one in my immediate world or life like these people. Disgusting. Those poor girls. An enthralling watch though all the same and it’s definitely got me pumped for The Royal Hotel.
-
Only imagine if the cameras weren't there and all these dudes acted naturally. A horrifying thought.
-
I live in Western Australia so a lot of what is portrayed in this film is all too familiar, and watching it in a cinema in Perth and hearing people laugh in the places they did was frankly disturbing. But I don't think this film is about Coolgardie and I don't think that the experience these girls face is something that is restricted to small pockets of the world like Coolgardie. This is something that happens all over Australia, and certainly all over the world. Hotel Coolgardie is merely an example of the sort of beliefs and behaviours that become "normalised" in environments such as these, and that is what is most disturbing.
-
Though my first hand experience of traversing and working in the Australian Outback as a foreign woman is and will always be non-existent, this astonishingly raw and unobtrusive documentary about two Finnish women trying to get by abroad felt amazingly faithful.
They encounter locals who vary between being horribly creepy, tragic, refreshingly friendly and even ruthless. They're the fresh meat in town for these often baying men as they try to learn how to run a bar and live in a place both so far away and very different from home.
As a story of two potentially vulnerable people thrown to the lions it's a tough watch and their almost constantly drunken patrons fail to paint the town of Coolgardie in a brilliant light, but as a documentary of a dying place that doesn't seem to realise that its survival relies on the people its residents can be so callous towards coming through - it's absolutely fascinating.
-
-
Hotel Coolgardie is a compelling, cringeworthy fly-on-the-wall documentary which follows a few weeks in the lives of Finnish backpackers, Stephanie and Lina after they are sent to work as barmaids in Coolgardie, a mining town in Western Australia.
I haven’t done film studies but it’s easy to guess what some of the issues are around documentaries. The film-maker is never a fly on the wall but would hope that by hanging around so much that they start to get ignored and don’t impact events too much. Then they’ve got many hours of footage which they have to edit into a narrative. How they let the narrative emerge and what to extent they force it into something that aligns with their…
-
The inspiration for the new "The Royal Hotel" movie coming out this year.
A hard look at what the backpackers have to put up with when they come work here in Australia.
Rife full of misogynistic alcoholics. It's a tough look at the reality of their daily working situation.
I applaud the ladies on how much shit they put up with, but really they shouldn't have to deal with any of this shit.
Interested to see where they take the movie.
-
Chilling documentary that the recent film 'The Royal Hotel' is based on. Two Finnish girls looking for work are sent to a small Australian outback mining town for bar work. The locals and their attitude towards the young women (who they regard as Fresh Meat') is pretty shocking. As is the postscript text.
Similar Films
Powered by Nanocrowd