Brisbane Powerhouse has, rather slyly, been hosting a series of free film screenings this past year, aptly named Antidote Films: Films that Matter. Curated by Ruari Elkington, the films are based on meaningful stories that provide an antidote to Hollywood’s fairy-floss romcoms and über macho action movies. All are brought to us by independent Australian film distributors, Antidote Films.
This Saturday’s pick is Love at the Twilight Motel, a documentary based around the busy motels of 8th Street in Miami, Florida, where rooms are available for hourly rates and the concealed garages have private staircases to the rooms (if you get what I mean). The doco is a survey of broken love stories and confessions, revealing the human stories behind the salacious circumstances. In it, we hear seven intimate stories from seven different patrons, all of them telling a story of love lost or betrayed.
Produced by Alison E. Rose and with cinematography by Daniel Grant, Love at the Twilight Motel is a thought-provoking and visually beautiful portrayal of something very real; quite an antidote to the shimmer and sparkle of mainstream cinema.