Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017
7:00 – Reception
7:30 p.m. – Screening
Free admission!
Ninth Street Independent Film Center
145 Ninth Street, Suite 250
San Francisco, CA 94103
To attend, please RSVP by noon on Tuesday, May 23rd to roughcutsrsvp@yahoo.com
25 Prospect Street
Directed by Kaveh Taherian
In the U.S., 56 million people live with disabilities, and 80 percent are unemployed. Enter the Prospector Theater, a recently abandoned storage facility, which has been converted to a first-run movie theater that trains and empowers adults with disabilities. Led by vibrant ex-school teacher Valerie Jensen, the team works together to turn their employees' passions into professions.
Director Kaveh Taherian tracks the rocky but inspiring 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 little interest in working at the theater, or even spending time with her sister.
"25 Prospect Street" offers a thoughtful and surprisingly funny portrait of Valerie, her employees, 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.
Moderator: Gina Leibrecht
Gina Leibrecht recently edited Owsley Brown's "Serenade for Haiti," which premiered at 2016 Doc NYC and was an official selection at this year's San Francisco International Film Festival. As a director, she collaborated with the acclaimed documentarian Les Blank on "All In This Tea" (2007), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival; and "How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy," which debuted at the Telluride Film Festival and went on to film festivals around the world.