Film Special: "25 Prospect Street" FREE
The incredible story of a Connecticut movie palace that provides unprecedented opportunities for people with disabilities.
Due to the weather, Valerie Jenkins and team will not be able to attend. There will be an encore screening with Valerie TBA
25 Prospect Street is the story of how Valerie Jensen, an unshakable former school teacher, transformed an abandoned bank into the Prospector Theater: a state-of-the-art movie palace that provides unprecedented opportunities for people with disabilities and a real shot at being successful and self-sufficient for the first time in their lives.
Director Kaveh Taherian tracks the emotional first year of the fledgling cinema, while following the missteps and giant leaps of the new recruits, many of whom are earning their first paychecks. Along the way, the growing distance between Valerie and her younger sister Hope—who has Down syndrome and was the original inspiration for the Prospector—proves an even greater challenge: Hope has goals of her own which don’t involve working at the theater or even spending time with her sister.
This new documentary offers a thoughtful and surprisingly humorous portrait of the Prospector team and the birth of a small business—one that is simultaneously on the brink of failure and on the cusp of serving as a new national model of how to put talented people to work.
D: Kaveh Taherian, US, 2018, 1h29m
