Secret Mall Apartment with Michael Townsend and Monte Belmonte

On Monday, May 19 at 7pm, lead subject Michael Townsend joins us in person for a post-screening discussion with Monte Belmonte of NEPM's The Fabulous 413.

In 2003, eight young Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment in a hidden space inside the Providence Place Mall and lived in it for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even secretly constructed a brick wall with a locking door, smuggling in over 2 tons of cinderblock.

Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for all its inhabitants—a personal expression of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, and finally, a 750 square foot space that sticks it to the man!

(The film will also play for additional screenings Friday, May 16 through Thursday, May 22. Check back soon for showtimes.)

"A hugely entertaining and insightful doc about issues/art that will force you to think while you laugh.”

–Ken Burns

“One of my favorite movies of the year to date. A remarkable story and a funny and hopeful one—a celebration of the indomitable urge to humanize the inhuman and a blueprint for colonizing the ‘negative spaces’ of a society intent on gentrifying its citizens out of a future.”

–Ty Burr, Ty Burr’s Watch List