Jesus spoke about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and housing the homeless, but as Emilio Estevez’s character points out in his new movie “The Public,” he didn’t say anything about “occupy.”
Yet that’s just what happens when a homeless man played by Michael Kenneth Williams decides to “organize” and stage an “occupy Wall Street”-style sit-in in order to get out of the frigid cold.
“The Public” is set inside a public library in downtown Cincinnati on a particularly freezing winter’s night. And while some of the library officials are at odds with the homeless residents and initially reluctant to help them, the simple act of civil disobedience slowly escalates into a stand-off between police and the media.
“You know I’m a veteran, right? I served my country. This is all I get? I decided to organize,” Williams says in the exclusive clip obtained by TheWrap. “Every public official in this town knows there’s not enough shelter for us people on the street. Those so-called Christians, they pretend like they don’t know that.”
Estevez wrote and directed “The Public,” which stars himself, Williams, Alec Baldwin, Jena Malone, Taylor Schilling, Christian Slater, Gabrielle Union, Jeffrey Wright and Che “Rhymefest” Smith.
It’s a film that considers mental health, the media, public health issues and homelessness. Estevez told TheWrap when the film played at the Toronto International Film Festival that it’s the first time he’s made a movie where he’s trapped inside a library since his classic “The Breakfast Club.”
“The Public” opens in theaters Friday. Watch an exclusive clip from the film above.