Shot over three years, Flophouse America is the unflinching debut feature by Norwegian photographer-turned-filmmaker Monica Strømdahl. The documentary offers an intimate, often harrowing portrait of Mikal, a boy growing up in a crumbling motel alongside his parents, Jason and Tonya, both trapped in cycles of addiction and poverty. In her conversation with Documentary Magazine, Strømdahl reflects on the ethical challenges of filming such vulnerable subjects over an extended period, the responsibility she felt toward Mikal and his family, and how her background in photography shaped the film’s aesthetic. With Flophouse America, she not only delivers a powerful creative statement but also raises urgent questions about systemic neglect, resilience, and the role of the documentary filmmaker as both witness and storyteller.
Docs about Youth
Makarenko, a public school in the Parisian suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine, is the subject of Elementary , the latest vérité study from renowned French
Located only 200-odd miles from the Arctic Circle, Pasvik Folk High School in Norway offers teenagers on the precipice of adulthood an opportunity to get some distance from the fast-paced demands of modern society and immerse themselves in snowy survivalism. Longtime collaborators and co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, Detropia) follow three students—the ever-determined Helge, socially awkward Bjorn Torne and keenly sensitive Romain—throughout the school year. While rooted in the filmmakers’ interest in unconventional educational institutions, FOLKTALES also marks one of their most ambitious projects yet, which necessitated a dozen two-day trips from New York to the remote Norwegian wilderness over a nine-month shooting period. Ewing and Grady spoke with me over Zoom the week before FOLKTALES premieres in Park City. Below, they shed insight on the origins of this project, the magic of finding one’s “dog twin” and embarking on a five-day shoot to secure the film’s poetic final shot.
An enormous English estate and its extensive gardens near Oxford take center stage for Dutch filmmaker Suzanne Raes’ latest feature documentary, Where
Youth movements have changed the world and revolutionized the way we organize against systems of oppression. From Freedom Summer to the March For Our
In celebration of International Youth Day on August 12, we’re highlighting five documentaries that showcase the (pre-COVID) lives of youth from the US