TOURISTIC INTENTS comes to Streaming & Disc on January 14th!

Architecture, tourism and political ideology come together in Touristic Intents, a new documentary from Chicago filmmaker Mat Rappaport that investigates the never-completed Nazi resort of Prora on Germany's Baltic Sea – a mammoth project started in 1936 by the Nazis to house 20,000 vacationing workers. After decades of abandonment and use as an East German military training site, the massive 3-mile-long edifice is now being turned into apartments, condominiums and hotels – despite its dark past.

Today, as Prora undergoes transformation into a modern vacation hub, the film raises provocative questions about the enduring influence of architecture on political memory and national identity, challenging viewers to consider the responsibilities in preserving a building's contentious history.

Mat Rappaport – Director & Writer

Mat Rappaport is a Chicago-based artist, filmmaker, curator, and educator known for works that utilize documentary film, mobile video, performance, and photography to explore habitation, perception, and power related to built environments. Rappaport’s work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in museums, galleries, film festivals, and public spaces. Recent projects have been featured during the 500 Anniversary of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy, the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the 2017 and 2018 Ann Arbor Film Festival, and performances with the Range Mobile Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Block Museum at Northwestern University.

Rappaport’s photographic work is included in the Midwest Photographer’s Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago and in and at the Newberry Library Protest Art Collection. He has received fellowships from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Howard Foundation, the Mary L. Nohl Fund, the Montgomery County Ohio Cultural District, and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Center for 21st Century Studies. Rappaport received his MFA from the University of Notre Dame and is the Donald W Klein Professor of the Practice in Film and Media Studies at Tufts University and Professor in the School of Film and Television at Columbia College, Chicago.