The Work in Progress

The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “The Work in Progress” showing Nov. 6-12 at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre.

If you were invited to sit at a table with someone you’ve never met before and answer handwritten questions from a wooden box about the state of America, would you run the other way? “The Work in Progress” invites strangers from across generations and geographies to engage in candid discussions about America’s ever-evolving democracy, identity, and definitions of community — and where the heck we go from here.

Guided by questions posed by Executive Producer Robert Reich, participants sit down in a series of conversations with one another to explore the country they’re living in now and the one they still believe is possible.

These encounters are intercut with portraits of Americans at work — in woodshops, laboratories, fields, board rooms, recording studios, theaters, and beyond. The message is simple but profound: America can work because, in many ways, it’s already working. And a central part of the work ahead is to reclaim the practices of dialogue, debate, compromise, and perhaps most importantly, listening, so that we might find our footing again.

What emerges in “The Work in Progress” is an unusual and provocative glimpse of America in its 250th year, and an invitation to all Americans to pull up a chair, invite a stranger, and lend an ear.

“The Work in Progress” will be shown at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Nov. 6-12. Showtimes will be Friday, Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 6, 9 and 10 at 3:30 p.m.; and Saturday, Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 7, 11 and 12 at 6:30 p.m.

Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona.