Empress Hotel
People:
Irving Saraf (Project Director)
Allie Light (Producer)
Roberta Goodman (Producer)
Grants:
$25,000 for post-production in 2008
About the Project
Empress Hotel is a feature-length documentary film about formerly homeless people in San Francisco. The film contrasts the order of the hotel as a community to the solitary lives of the individuals who live there. The film explores perspective and truth about what it is to be homeless and whether mental illness is an indiscriminate label applied more readily to those already demoralized by circumstance. The film is made up of reenactments of certain subjects' pasts as well as created visuals of their inner fantasies.The film's authenticity rests in the voices of the residents and what they will reveal and share with the audience. The film gleans moments from their lives which mirror the very challenges with which everyone grapples. The viewer is witness to stories of survival, courage, loss, endurance, confusion, pain, humanity and fellowship. The film portrays human beings with all their frailties and resilience with compassion, empathy and a sense of kinship.
Empress Hotel is about what it means to be human under duress and exposes the complex slide into homelessness that is often not the fault of an individual. The film also reveals the human face of citizens transitioning from homelessness to permanent affordable housing, an important intervention called supportive housing, which offers a humane approach to a complicated societal problem.