Sometimes it’s nice to go to a bar where everybody knows your name, but being an outsider in that environment isn’t always easy. And that’s the perspective director Pete Gleeson takes in the documentary “Hotel Coolgardie” which, after screening at Hot Docs, Sydney Film Festival, New Zealand International Film Festival and many more, will make its U.S. debut at this month’s Slamdance Film Festival.
The film follows Finnish backpackers Lina and Steph, who arrive in a remote Australian city and land work at a local bar to earn some money. But as you’ll see in the exclusive scene below, pulling beers at the Hotel Goolgardie isn’t always easy. Here’s the official synopsis:
At a remote pub, on a dusty highway between Australia’s most isolated city and its largest gold pit, the arrival every three months of a new pair of foreign backpackers to work the bar is a keenly anticipated event.
Fresh off the plane and attracted by the idea of an authentic outback experience, Finnish travellers Lina and Steph find themselves en route to a dot on the map – to pour beers, replenish depleted travel funds, and live amongst the locals. But their working holiday quickly deteriorates into a baptism of fire.
Harangued by their new boss, relentlessly pursued or pilloried by booze-addled patrons, and prey to the madness and malaise of an environment as claustrophobic as it is isolated – the girls soon realize that to meet expectations out here, they’ll need to do more than just serve drinks.
Sometimes humorous, often shocking, Hotel Coolgardie is a raw, wryly-observed journey into an outback Australia rarely depicted on screen.
“Hotel Coolgardie” will have its first screening at Slamdance on January 23rd at 3 PM at the Gallery.
