Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel

In 2000, developers purchase the century-old Gladstone Hotel to turn it from skid row flophouse to arts and music hotspot. They think it's empty... until they meet Marilyn Maskell, the chambermaid with a heart of gold; Shirley Ann Lowery, the cynical front desk clerk; and a motley crew of residents, including Maryanne Akulick, a sweet ex-bag lady with a penchant for collecting things. The staff and residents -- some who have been there for over 30 years -- worry they'll be squeezed out during the hotel's revitalization.

The developers come up with a plan; gradual restoration, seeing staff and residents remain upstairs, while the bar sells designer drinks to hip new clientele downstairs. It doesn't work. Ultimately, experimental filmmaker, Christina Zeidler, inherits the mess and forms a "business model that includes social change," but the hotel has the last word. City inspectors demand complete rewiring, the boiler blows up leaving the building without heat, ceilings leak, walls crumble and now it's up to Zeidler to decide what to do.

Shot over five years in a cinema direct style, this film is an intimate portrait of urban renewal upon the poor, revealing the unintentional roles we often play in the process of gentrification. (KinoSmith)