Beat Hotel

1957, Paris. A cheap no-name hotel becomes a haven for a new breed of artists struggling to free themselves from the conformity and censorship of America. Called the Beat Hotel, it soon became an epicenter of the Beat Generation. This revelatory new documentary delves deep into this amazing place and time.

Fleeing the obscenity trials surrounding the publication of Howl, Allen Ginsberg, along with Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso, happened upon the hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris and were soon joined by William S. Burroughs, Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin. Run by Madame Rachou, the Beat Hotel was a hotbed of creativity and permissiveness, where Burroughs finished Naked Lunch; Ginsberg and Corso wrote some of their greatest poetry; Sommerville and Gysin invented the Dreamachine; and Harold Norse wrote a novella, aptly called The Beat Hotel.

British photographer Harold Chapman's iconic photos and Scottish artist Elliot Rudie's drawings, interwoven with firsthand accounts, capture the Beats just as they were beginning to establish themselves, and bring THE BEAT HOTEL to life.