![<b>Hotel Coolgardie:</b> misogyny with a smile.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171128095826im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/k/p/0/l/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gwdev5.png/1496703501036.jpg)
HOTEL COOLGARDIE
★★★½
MA, 83 minutes. Cinema Nova, opens Thursday
Having had their savings stolen following credit card theft in Bali, two Finnish travellers in their mid-20s, Lina and Stephie, sign up for a three-month stint as barmaids in a small town pub in West Australian goldfields. As documented by director Pete Gleeson, their experiences are sometimes harrowing and often depressing. "New Girls Tonite!!" writes their boss – who soon verbally savages them for the front bar's amusement – on the chalkboard outside, and the women are considered "fresh meat" by the hard-drinking male clientele. The misogyny comes with a smile that starts to fade, and with language difficulties and a lack of support from local women they struggle with their new environment. Gleeson's unvarnished style actually leans towards signs of friendship and understanding, but there are several scenes that are nightmarish. In one a man sitting at the bar laments his inability to meet women who will satisfy his sexual needs, matter-of-factly connecting it to making violence his means of recourse. "They're sad," says Lina of the locals, and the film suggests a horribly flawed pathology. CM
CHAUKA, PLEASE TELL US THE TIME
★★★½
15+, 90 minutes. Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Friday, June 16, to Sunday, June 18.
Repeatedly in this quietly despairing documentary, which was filmed in secret at the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea, the mobile phone camera will focus on symbols of freedom, only to pull back to reveal the tight links of a security fence. It's a simple technique, but fitting, because in the film imprisonment is a kind of stasis – those inside the Australian government's facility lose their purpose, hope and in some cases will to live. The footage shot by Iranian-Kurdish journalist and detainee, Behrouz Boochani, who worked at a digital distance with Iranian-Dutch filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani to complete the project, captures quotidian tasks, daily discussions and moments of anguish, such as a victim of self-harm being hospitalised. Detainees testify to abuse and coercion, including allegations about those responsible for the 2014 murder of Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati, but unlike last year's Chasing Asylum this is not a broadside. The documentary is an attempt to capture a reality that makes no sense, to keep moving and creating when it's easier to slow down and fade away. CM
KEDI
★★★
G, 80 minutes. Australian Centre for the Moving Image, until Tuesday, July 4.
Defined by low to the ground camerawork that captures feline grace and a ruminative philosophical outlook, this Turkish documentary about the city of Istanbul's vast population of moggies overshadows any mere cat video online. "Without the cat, Istanbul would lose part of its soul," suggests one human admirer, and Ceyda Torun's feature weaves together a portrait of a busting metropolis that, you come to realise, the cats share with the people. We see a mother provide for her kittens, a new arrival snarls at a local supremo, and – with the use of night vision cameras – a waterside hunter closes in on a mouse. These cats preen and patrol, with their presence providing stray everyday relief for the city's inhabitants, who in admiring voice-over offer appreciation and ascribe unlikely benefits to animals who are connected to Istanbul's history. The cats are perfectly suited to the city's network of small businesses, and their casual defiance is a fitting reminder of Turkey's beaten down but unbroken streak of independence. CM