Synopsis

Hotel Mokum is a docu fiction about a collective that squatted the abandoned Hotel Marnix in the heart of Amsterdam on October 16th, 2021. Over six weeks the collective transformed the hotel into a home, a self-proclaimed free space and an oasis in a city smothered by hypergentrification. At the height of its popularity, Hotel Mokum got evicted under the guise of fire safety. The story of Hotel Mokum is rooted in protest: against both the housing and cost of living crises, as well as the criminalisation of squatting in 2010 that led to the eviction of over 300 squats in Amsterdam alone. The film combines documentary footage, archival materials and constructed scenes to create a complex and intimate portrait of a hopeful collective and the city they are working to reclaim.