Hotel Number 70 (film)- 2023

This is a film that focuses on three single mothers living in a shared house for asylum seekers in Cardiff. By conflating interviews with the soundtrack from a 1970s advertisement for the Holiday Inn hotel chain I explored the disconnect between the image of the hotel as a luxury aspirational experience and the shattered dreams of young people traveling to the UK to seek asylum. The project is not a critique of capitalism per se, instead it explores the paradoxes inherent in the language used to perpetuate capitalist ideals, and it contrasts them with the lived political realities shown in the film by the single mothers living in cramped conditions with very little hope for the future. Extraordinary profits are on offer, of course, for the providers of this poor-quality accommodation. And as a final irony, in the 21st century, the Holiday Inns in the UK are used as asylum seeker initial accommodation.

Mana Baoosh - ManaBaoosh.com