“Who spilled vodka on the cat?” are words that, to my knowledge, have never been spoken in a movie before. Until now.
They are uttered by 12-year-old Mikal in the documentary Flophouse America, which just made its world premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, winning a Special Mention in the DOX:Award category. Mikal was expressing not only concern for his cat Smoky, but frustration with his parents – the likely culprits behind the inadvertent moistening of the feline.
In the directorial debut of Norwegian photographer Monica Strømdahl, the captivating young Mikal spends a lot of his time as the responsible one in the household – regularly washing dishes in the bathtub, for instance, or tending to Smoky’s needs – while his parents occupy themselves drinking and smoking. Though not yet a teenager, in many respects it’s he who takes on the parental role.
“He had this fire inside, he had this strength,” Strømdahl tells Deadline. “I saw a child — in Norway, we call it løvetann barn, like ‘dandelion children,’ who grow through the pavement. And he was so school smart, street smart. He was so aware of his surroundings, and he had learned how to navigate his reality.”
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It’s a reality lived by millions of Americans at the economic margins. The film begins with a statistic read by Mikal: “The official poverty rate in the U.S. is 11.5%, meaning that approximately 34 million people live in poverty.”
And this one: “Many low-income families resort to long-term stays in hotels or motels due to lack of access to affordable housing.”
And this one, that equally applies to Mikal: “About 1 in 10 children, 7.5 million, live in households with at least one parent who has an alcohol abuse disorder.”
Most Americans of means ignore these lives, but Strømdahl, a non-native, became drawn to exploring them, first as a photography student. She initially stayed in a “flophouse” (as they are rather uncharitably known), in the South Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in the early 2000s.
“I got to know the people who lived there. And after my first stay, I returned the year after and the year after, the year after,” Strømdahl explains. “The residents, slowly, they became my friends we got to know each other well. And I started photographing and I did that for many years.”
“These hotels have minimal service, Strømdahl continues. “It is the next best thing to nothing, but everybody needs a safe place and a roof over their head in the city. I was left with a deep sense of injustice for the people who had stayed there. And I started doing research about how evictions work, how the housing situation is. I got more aware about the continuous housing crisis that was going on. And I discovered that this hotel wasn’t unique to New York, but every state and every big city actually has these very reasonable hotels where they offer maybe weekly or monthly rates.”
To locate flophouses, the photographer asked around or searched for “negative comments on TripAdvisor about these hotels”; the more disparaging the comments, the more likely the place was to interest her.
“I felt I was taking sides with the [residents] because I had known so many wonderful people who were just in these hotels out of necessity for a place to sleep,” she says. “I set out to prove those comments wrong, you might say, and I wanted to document this lifestyle before it disappeared” due to gentrification.
In the course of her journeys around the U.S., she crossed paths with Mikal and his parents, Jason and Tonya.
“Mikal was 11 at the time when I first met him. And my room was, coincidentally, opposite the family’s room,” she remembers. “I have met many children during this project. In Florida there are thousands of children who live in hotels and in other [similar] places as well. But he was the first one I met that was born into this hotel. He was raised in these hallways. He learned to walk in the hallways, and he was born into the crossfire of poverty and addiction, which his parents suffered from.”
Strømdahl began to feel still images couldn’t sufficiently reveal their lives.
“I thought photography is not enough,” she says. “And I felt like I wanted to take a step back and allow the family to tell their story more on their own terms… There is something about the voices, there is something about movement that allows the person to have ownership more and to be able to convey more of their story.”
The family portrait that emerges is one of deep psychological complexity. At times, Jason and Tonya seem to border on George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, bickering with each other as Mikal listens or, more often than not, tunes it out with earphones on, playing video games. Yet the spats never reach George-and-Martha levels of acrimony and viciousness; perhaps the most common words spoken between parents – and between Jason, Tonya and Mikal – are “I love you.”
Strømdahl, though unseen in the film, inevitably becomes a silent partner to the dynamic. “I wanted to make a film with Michael’s perspective,” she observes. “His parents’ alcohol abuse is a huge problem in his every day because he cannot connect when he wants to connect. So, he saw me as a way also to make a connection with his parents by showing them how they behave and how they are. And I think that he felt seen and empowered by my presence. I also think that his parents did feel seen and empowered and they wanted to show what it is to be them.”
Flophouse America is one of seven films in the CPH:DOX lineup chosen for the European Film Promotion initiative. The program’s aim is to put worthy documentaries in front of U.S. entities like A24, Neon, and sales, production, and distribution company Submarine.
“We call it the showcase,” explains EFP Program Manager Nora Goldstein. “The festival selects six to seven European titles out of their competition section that seem to have not only the potential but maybe the right appeal for the U.S. market… Our goal is mainly to create more awareness for the [films]. We are happy if they decide to check them out. We cannot count on making the big sales or whatever, but if they at least know that they exist, it’s already a win for us.”
For a film like Flophouse America, which will be looking for U.S. distribution, being tapped for the EFP initiative is a major boost and a major honor.
“It was wild to get the message,” that her film had been chosen for initiative, Strømdahl says. “I couldn’t believe it… It’s a huge opportunity to spread the word. We want to have an impact. We want to use the film as a tool. And by being part of this program, I feel like we’ll be able to somehow reach a wider audience.”
She adds, “I am so glad that it exists, the EFP, and just immensely proud to be a part of it and to be chosen like that. It tells me that others think that the topic is important and hopefully it will lead to some valuable partnerships.”
The post A Star Is Born In ‘Flophouse America’: Captivating Mikal Navigates Poverty And His Parents’ Drinking In CPH:DOX World Premiere appeared first on Deadline.
