by GREG KING
On a dusty highway between Australia’s most isolated city and its largest gold pit lies Coolgardie – where the arrival every three months of a new pair of foreign backpackers to work the only bar in town is a keenly anticipated event. Fresh off the plane and lured by the promise 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. Hotel Coolgardie is a shocking, amusing and unexpectedly moving portrait of small-town insularity, fragile masculinity, the boozy, blokey, bogan Australian culture, and may remind many of the 1971 classic Wake In Fright.
Greg spoke to director Pete Gleeson about some of the challenges in shooting this raucous, unflinching documentary
https://www.mediafire.com/file/te9ha0f4ugnabyq/220521_001.MP3
