Flophouse America

synopsis

One in ten children in the United States lives below the poverty line. Among them is twelve-year-old Mikel, who lives with his parents Jason and Tonya in a one-room apartment in a cheap motel. His story is exceptional in that he was born into extreme poverty and alcohol addiction and knows no other life, even though he longs for one. This empathetic family portrait, free of prejudice and with an unusual understanding of the characters' situation, tells a story of love and pain, hopelessness and hope, and points to a flaw in the system that excludes low-income households from the regular real estate market and creates socially conditioned generational trauma.

“It’s a comment on the U.S. as an institution and as a society, where people are ‘collected’ only because they need to exist next to each other, not necessarily with each other.” — Monica Strømdahl

Source: International Documentary Association.

biography

Monica Strømdahl (b. 1982) is a Norwegian photographer who has been photographing the residents of cheap American motels for over fifteen years, ever since she herself lived in one as a student. Flophouse America is her feature-length directorial debut.

film details

director:	Monica Strømdahl
producer:	Beathe Hofseth, Siri Natvik
script:	Monica Strømdahl
photography:	Monica Strømdahl
editing:	Siv Lamark
music:	Andreas Ihlebæk, Marius Troy
sound design:	Mark Glynne, Olmo van Straalen
co-producer:	Eline van Wees
executive producer:	David Sutherland, Joshua Seftel, Eric Nicols

contact

Raluca Iacob / Lightdox
raluca@lightdox.com