Julio Maria Martino – Country of Hotels #MANIFF2021

March 11, 2021

Julio Maria Martino - Country of Hotels #MANIFF2021 fredfilmradio

Podcast | Download

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Julio Maria Martino, director of the film Country of Hotels.

A conversation with Julio Maria Martino, director of Country of Hotels. The film is screening on March 12 at this year’s online edition of the Manchester Film Festival, and revolves around a number of people who find themselves spending time in a mysterious and decaying hotel. In this interview, the director talks about the style of the film, surreal, absurd and darkly comic, and talks about the influences of such people as David Lynch and Samuel Beckett. He also talks about the challenge of shooting a film that mostly takes place in one single hotel room, his collaboration with screenwriter David Hauptschein and the cast, and how he believes this film reflects these days of lockdown, despite the fact that it was made before the start of the pandemic.

Country of Hotels tells the stories of the desperate souls who pass through the doors of 508, a room on the fifth floor of an anonymous, decaying hotel. We are taken on a surreal and blackly comic journey down its lonely corridors and behind its out-dated furnishings and stained surfaces. The story plunges us into the ever-turning carousel of haunted lives who check in and check out of the establishment.

Written by: fredfilmradio

Country of Hotels Julio Maria Martino Manchester Film Festival Matt Micucci

Guest

Matt Micucci Rafael Martínez Moreno

Film

The Missed Round

Festival

Manchester Film Festival

Rate it

Channel posts

News

Festival de Cannes

“Two Prosecutors”: Sergei Loznitsa Examines the Terror Machine Past and Present

May 16, 2025

At the 78th Cannes Film Festival, Sergei Loznitsa Two Prosecutors delivered a striking reflection on the human cost of authoritarianism, challenging the audience to confront modern echoes of 1937.

News

Festival de Cannes

“Sound of Falling” by Mascha Schilinski: a Haunting Tale of Generational Trauma

May 15, 2025

Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling (Die Sonne schauen) debuts in Competition at the 78th Festival de Cannes. A poetic, female-led meditation on generational trauma and memory.