Here at Guidedoc we have all kinds of documentaries. Even those who can take us to places we would never conceive with cool heads. The following ten documentaries are a small sample of how bizarre our planet can be.
For the purposes of this list, the word "bizarre" does not have a negative connotation, quite the contrary. We could also call it surreal, underground, or surprising.
This list is about places that harbor a possibility to get out of reality and let us get caught by the less rational impulses of the collective unconscious.
A South American prison with a medieval circus feeling, a ghostly nuclear village in Belgium or a drag queen underworld in surreal Mexico City are some of the fantastic places we will visit in this list of documentaries.
Lost in time, we will also discover two hippie communes that marked a milestone in the midst of the movement's decline in the seventies. In contrast, the most psychedelic nightlife corners of Lima will scream with all their electronic music.
A ghost train hidden in a forgotten place in the United States and the ruins of a military bunker turned into a cruising place end up composing a panorama of oddities worth scrutinizing.
Originally conceived to house prisoners, the San Pedro prison in La Paz looks like anything but the main jail of the Bolivian capital.
Inside, everything looks more like a movie set in the Baroque, as its 1,500 inmates live in a kind of confined freedom alongside hundreds of women and nearly three hundred children who share their confinement in a place originally built for 300 people at most.
This film documents with an observational approach the beautiful chaos that is set up every day in this strange place full of tents, spaces for leisure and, of course, cells for the prisoners.
The idea of the value of family permeates the entire film, a premise that probably motivated the existence of this place that, although very strange, contains within its walls an enormous wealth of humanity.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
One of the protagonists of this documentary defines Casa Roshell as a place that means a reward for all his efforts during the week.
In this queer underworld, every weekend he has the opportunity to stop being a man and become "Pina". Casa Roshell is the place where men in Mexico City can become that "forbidden fruit," a full-fledged drag queen.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
Every day, 84-year-old Geof must care for his ailing wife, who has long been unable to fend for herself and can't even remember who her husband is.
It has been a difficult few years for our octogenarian protagonist, whose energetic and loving life with his wife is now a distant memory.
But Geof has a secret, and the mission of this short documentary is to bring it to light. Some nights, when the weight of daytime reality is too much, Geof visits Dracula's, a cabaret theater set in the world of vampires.
The grainy, black-and-white images used by the filmmakers immerse us in this strange place, where Geof can smile again, especially every time he sees Gilian come out on stage.
She is a young performer with whom Geof begins an endearing friendship through which he channels his fears and hopes at a time when he must face an imminent encounter with death.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
This documentary is a kind of collective dream during a night in the alternative music scene of Lima, Peru.
A grand piano burning, a discotheque impregnated with phosphorescent tubes, a musician playing an electromagnetic instrument in the middle of an arid desert.
These are just snippets of psychedelic places we will visit in this rare musical.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
Is Australia too far away to visit? Well, in this documentary the only problem is that its director, John D. Lamond, is too close to this distant land.
Shot in the 1970s, this documentary is billed as a liberal manifesto that makes visible the most eccentric and erotic corners of this immense subcontinent.
From the Perth known for its gay pride to the cosmopolitan Sydney and its strip clubs, Lamond dives into the cracks of the Australian flat ground to show its less presentable corners.
Some of the film's scenes include a nude woman who gets her rocks off with pleasure, a nudist painting studio or a restaurant famous for cooking live snakes in a frying pan, all complemented by the ironic voice of a narrator who acts as a guide.
Get ready to watch this classic film and take a journey into the most primal urges of man and woman.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
The remains of two famous hippie communes lie forgotten somewhere in Huerfano Valley, Colorado.
More than thirty years after their existence, those who were part of these utopian communities remember the rise and tragic decline of these socialist projects through the objects that still remain among us.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
The renowned Japanese architect Takamitsu Azuma lived in the 1960s in a house he designed in the city of Tokyo.
The oddity of this dwelling is that it is shaped like a tower, with several floors connected by an endless staircase.
This short film observes the interior of this house in 2013 through a single sequence shot.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
The small town of Doel, in a forgotten corner of rural Belgium, could be a cross between Springfield (The Simpsons) and Erie Indiana (that fictitious town from a well-known American science fiction series).
Located between a nuclear power plant and an old port, and surrounded by cows, the great question is who still remains in this decaying ghost town?
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
In Cuba, one of the main daily taboos is the lack of space for sexual intimacy due to the high concentration of inhabitants per dwelling.
In the case of LGTBI people, the situation is more than complicated.
But today, a group of homosexuals turned the ruins of an old military bunker into one of the strangest cruising sites ever seen.
Watch this documentary now on Guidedoc
Get ready for a walking tour of Athens by night.
Under the shadow of the worst crisis in Greece's history, this city opens its veins to show us seemingly everyday characters with ghostly overtones, who tell us their perspectives and dilemmas about the future of this ancestral place.
Watch this and more documentaries now on Guidedoc