Brooklyn Arts Hotel Documentary Captures Final Days

Throughout its dozen years of operation, the Brooklyn Arts Hotel had one overriding rule: no sports fans.

“I was talking to people who were interested in the arts,” says Maggie Fooke, owner and manager of the nine-room boutique hotel on George Street in Fitzroy. “You could be a participant, an observer or a contributor. But if people said, ‘We’re here for the footy,’ we’d say, ‘Sorry, we’re sold out.’ No Grand Prix, no horse racing.”

Tennis, on the other hand, “was on the edge.”

Because you like the sport? “No, not particularly. But it’s not as shocking as the others.”

Fooke, 74, is as singular as her hotel. She has been an architect, landscape architect, university professor, broadcaster and filmmaker – her short Pleasure domes In 1988, she was the first Australian to be invited to compete in Cannes for animation. She is also a hotelier. Since selling the Brooklyn in 2020 (the deal closed the week before Australia’s first lockdown), she has moved her salon to the Northern Arts Hotel in Castlemaine.

The woman and the place she ran to are the subject of To thank the roomwhich was recently voted Best Melbourne Documentary at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival and is currently screening at Cinema Nova. It captures the last 100 days of the Brooklyn Art Hotel and the sometimes chaotic life within.

Fooke originally planned to make the film herself. She bought a camera, emailed friends and former guests to invite them to participate, and began planning a series of art events to commemorate the hotel’s demise.

Among those who responded was Belinda Lloyd, a neighbour and health worker who had studied film at RMIT.

“I was kind of fascinated and excited, so I said I would like to become a coffee delivery person or help out in any way,” Lloyd says.

“And she quickly realized that I was way beyond my capacity to film the end of the thing,” Fooke says, “and we bought another camera, we had two of the same, and worked together at first, and over time, I worked less and you worked more.”

Lloyd is credited as the director of To thank the roomFooke as producer. But it was clearly a collaboration – and still is.

As we chat in a cafe on Gertrude Street, Fooke reveals that there’s a whole bunch of footage she shot before Lloyd came on board.

“I never gave you this,” she said.

“I’m not going to do it again now,” Lloyd jokes. Who was the chef on set? I ask.

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“We gave and received,” Lloyd says. “It was a strong dynamic. We had one partner.” One? That’s pretty good.

“Yes, I am quite patient.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Fooke jokes.

The Brooklyn is now a private residence, completely renovated by its wealthy owner since the sale. “It needed a lot of work,” Fooke concedes.

She originally bought the building with a friend, intending to use it as a private residence for them and their children (Fooke has a daughter, Aphrodite, who appears in the film). But when her friend decided she needed more space for herself and her two children, Fooke bought out her share.

Although the hotel was born out of necessity, when she had to deal with a huge mortgage, it was also an opportunity to bring to life a dream of a way of life, a space where people could talk about art, ideas, politics, culture. The large communal table where guests had breakfast together was the focal point, the rooms decorated with second-hand objects set the tone.

“It wasn’t just a building or a business,” she said. “It was a way of life.”

But she doesn’t mourn his loss. “I mourned before, during, not after. I don’t really miss the hotel since then, because I know it doesn’t exist anymore.”

Plus, the place in Castlemaine is bigger, in better condition, with a bigger communal space where she can host events – “we have music, we show films, people meet there; it’s able to do things I couldn’t do in Brooklyn.”

In a sense, the film marks not only the disappearance of a space, but also that of the Fitzroy of yesteryear.

“I miss the shabby authenticity of that suburb,” Fooke says of the suburb she lived in for decades, even before Brooklyn. “It feels kind of artificial now. Pretentious, that’s how it feels.”

“People try too hard to be somebody, I don’t understand what it’s all about,” she adds. “I wish people weren’t so concerned about their looks and stuff. I’m sorry that’s the case.”

To thank the room will be screened at the Nova Cinema from August 9 to 14 and from August 17 to 18.

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