Voyeur
Synopsis
VOYEUR follows Gay Talese as he reports one of the most controversial stories of his career: a portrait of a Colorado motel owner named Gerald Foos, who secretly spied on his guests for decades. As Talese turns his own gaze to a man accustomed to being the watcher, the film explores a tangle of ethical questions: What does a journalist owe to his subjects? What does a voyeur owe to the people he spies on? How can a reporter trust a source who has made a career of deception? And who is really the voyeur?
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The Filmmakers
Myles Kane Director
Myles Kane has directed Journey to Planet X, An Immortal Man, and We Will Live Again as well as editing We Are Wizards, Made In India, and Ask the Sexpert. He's produced numerous short films and tv programs for The New Yorker and BBC.
Josh Koury Director
Josh Koury's director credits include Journey to Planet X, We Are Wizards, Standing by Yourself, An Immortal Man and We Will Live Again. As a film programmer, Koury's tenure includes four years at the Hamptons Internationall Film Festival and four seasons as the Director of Programming at the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival. He is currently a faculty member at the Pratt Institute and FIT.
Trisha Koury Producer
In addition to producing VOYEUR, Trisha Koury has partnered with Kane & Koury on previous films including producing: Journey to Planet X, An Immortal Man, and We Will Live Again. She also works with Peter Yang on photography assignments for clients like Rolling Stone, Levis, Comedy Central, GQ, and Amazon.
Updates
VOYEUR launches on Netflix today!
12/1/17
Don't miss VOYEUR on Netflix!
Festivals & Awards
New York Film Festival
2017
Gerald Foos bought a motel in Colorado in the 1960s, furnished the room with louvered vents that allowed him to spy on his guests, and kept a journal of their sexual encounters…among other things. As writer Gay Talese, who had known Foos for more than three decades, came close to the publication of his book The Voyeur’s Motel (preceded by an excerpt in The New Yorker), factual discrepancies in Foos’s account emerged, and documentarians Kane and Koury were on hand to record some wild encounters between the veteran New York journalist and his enigmatic subject. A Netflix release.
Hamptons International Film Festival
2017
In 2016, legendary journalist Gay Talese published in The New Yorker an excerpt from his upcoming book The Voyeur’s Motel, which quickly proved to be one of the most controversial stories of his career. Following the writer during this period, documentarians Myles Kane and Josh Koury track Talese as he investigates the story of the Colorado motel owner, Gerald Foos, who secretly built an observation platform to watch the most intimate moments in the lives of his guests. As questions emerge about Foos’s trustworthiness, Talese is thrown into the middle of a controversy that threatens to destroy the story he’s been working on for more than three decades.
Reviews
“A marvelous documentary…Packed beyond vacancy with discussions of weighty topics like authorial intent, truth in journalism, and media manipulation.”
“Disturbing, absorbing and eerily timely.”
“A provocative portrait of a journalistic train wreck.”
“VOEYUR is a fascinating, queasy portrait of exposure.”