Sirens, screams, laughter, bartering: these are the sounds sweeping into the rooms of Downtown Los Angeles’ old forgotten hotels. Their inhabitants’ stories tell of lives lived on the margins. Some residents stay for a few months. Others have lived there for as long as 40 years. Director Alina Skrzeszewska shot SONGS FROM THE NICKEL while living in one of the hotels herself. The result is a strikingly intimate portrait of this largely invisible community. A layered image of America’s diverse urban landscape unfolds, with all its fractures and traumas, as well as its potential.
Alina Skrzeszewska
Born in Wroclaw/Poland. During the politically charged years after the outbreak of the Solidarity movement her family emigrated to West Germany, and Alina grew up in Munich. She studied Stage Design and Art&Media at the University of the Arts in Berlin, and received an MFA in Film&Video from the California Institute of the Arts. Alina’s work meanders between essayistic and documentary forms. Her films often talk about fringes, borders, boundaries: be they spaces that carry borders within them, or people whose lives are somehow fractured. Songs from the Nickel (2010) is her first documentary feature.
