Welcome Change Productions

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Welcome Change Productions is an independent documentary production company founded in 1991 by filmmaker Alice Elliott. Their 2002 film The Collector of Bedford Street was nominated for an Academy Award in the short documentary category and won the Best Documentary, Horizon Award, and Audience Award at its world premier at the Aspen Shortsfest.

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Welcome Change specializes in making films that focus on people with disabilities and communities that are reinventing themselves. Their mission is "to lead social change by revealing the big stories hidden in the human heart."

Welcome Change's upcoming film, Miracle on 42nd Street, is a feature-length documentary about the unique apartment complex called Manhattan Plaza located in Manhattan’s historic Theater District, a neighborhood also known as Hell’s Kitchen. Located on the block between 42nd and 43rd Streets, it is often called the “Miracle on 42nd Street” due to the near-miraculous effect the complex has had on the once-blighted neighborhood and on the lives of its residents. Seventy percent of the occupants work in the performing arts and thirty percent are Hell’s Kitchen residents who are elderly, disabled or have been relocated from substandard housing.

Alice Elliott

Alice Elliott is an Academy Award® nominated director, a writer, producer, university level teacher, advocate for the disabled, cinematographer, and the recipient of 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Alice is also a member of New Day Films, a 40-year-old educational film distribution cooperative. Her short documentary, The Collector of Bedford Street, was nominated for an Academy Award® and aired on HBO/Cinemax. Alice Elliott was the director, co-producer, and the principal verite cinematographer on her latest film, Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy, which aired on PBS for National Disability Awareness Month. Recently she returned from screening Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy in Uzbekistan for the State Department through The American Documentary Showcase, sponsored by the University Film and Video Association. Alice is a full-time faculty member at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and has been producing documentaries for almost twenty years.

Her writing includes the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark?. She co-authored The Tale of the Bookish Babysitter. With Cliff Bryant, she completed a screen play, HAT TRICK. A published and produced playwright of both adult and children’s plays, her work includes the book for Wide Awake Jake, co-authoring The Magic Fishbone with music and lyrics by Tom Chapin and Michael Mark. Her other plays, Willing to be Lucky and The Incredible Shrinking Family, premiered in New York City at the Joseph Campbell/Jean Erdman Open Eye: New Stagings series.

As a performer, she appeared on ABC’s daytime drama LOVING for ten years and made two feature films including Four Friends directed by Arthur Penn. For major publishers in New York, she has recorded English as a Second Language programs and was one of the speakers on the TOEFL English Standard audio tests. In addition she has produced or performed in over 200 commercials. She teaches a voice over class for NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and coaches voice over clients, radio personalities, and public speakers.

She is a member of Actors Equity, American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, Screen Actors Guild, and New York Women in Film and Television (former board member and secretary).

The Collector of Bedford Street

The Collector of Bedford Street is an Academy Award® nominated 34 minute documentary about Alice’s neighbor, Larry Selman. Every year, Larry collects thousands of dollars for charities while living at the poverty line. Larry is a community activist and a fundraiser who has an intellectual disability. When Larry’s Uncle Murray becomes unable to care for him, his New York City neighbors come together and establish an adult trust fund to ensure that he continues to live independently in his own apartment.

Body and Soul: Diana & Kathy

Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy is a look at an unusual, symbiotic relationship between two people some would call profoundly disabled. Two of the country’s most remarkable advocates for people with disabilities, Diana Braun, who has Down Syndrome, and Kathy Conour, who has cerebral palsy, met three decades ago and vowed to fight to live independent lives. The film is a story of a compelling, creative friendship.

Upcoming Projects

Callicoon Center Band

Two and a half hours from New York City lie the Catskill Mountains and rural Sullivan County. For the last seventy-five years, in the summer, for one hour on Wednesday nights, rain or shine, the Callicoon Center Band has been playing. The audience is mostly locals, because Wednesday night is not really convenient for the city people whose second homes dot the hills and lakes surrounding Callicoon Center. Also the music may not be quite to their taste. Polkas, Waltzes, and the hits of fifty years ago come blaring and bouncing out of the thirty member band.

Local music teachers, merchants, social workers, teens and retirees commit to ten weeks of rehearsal in the spring and ten performances over the summer. In this hour-long documentary, Academy Award nominated® director Alice Elliott celebrates music and community as the band rides the waves of change.

Miracle on 42nd Street

MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET is a feature-length documentary about the unique apartment complex called Manhattan Plaza located in Manhattan’s historic Theater District, a neighborhood also known as Hell’s Kitchen. Located on the block between 42nd and 43rd Streets, it is often called the “Miracle on 42nd Street” due to the near-miraculous effect the complex has had on the once-blighted neighborhood and on the lives of its residents. Seventy percent of the occupants work in the performing arts and thirty percent are Hell’s Kitchen residents who are elderly, disabled or have been relocated from substandard housing.

The film tells the story of how this innovative affordable housing experiment came to be, the artists it has nurtured, the close community its residents and management have created and the positive impact it has had on the economy of Manhattan’s West Side. The filmmakers, several of whom are current and former residents, are passionate about sharing the story of Manhattan Plaza with the world. It is a unique model of what can be achieved by bringing together over 3,500 people from differing cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds.

Related Research Articles

Hells Kitchen, Manhattan Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the east, and the Hudson River to the west.

Chelsea, Manhattan Neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City

Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River and West Street to the west, and Sixth Avenue to the east, with its northern boundary variously described as near the upper 20s or 34th Street, the next major crosstown street to the north. To the northwest of Chelsea is the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, as well as Hudson Yards; to the northeast are the Garment District and the remainder of Midtown South; to the east are NoMad and the Flatiron District; to the southwest is the Meatpacking District; and to the south and southeast are the West Village and the remainder of Greenwich Village. Chelsea is named after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, England.

Midtown Manhattan Central business district in New York City

Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, the headquarters of the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal, and Rockefeller Center, as well as tourist destinations such as Broadway and Times Square.

Eighth Avenue (Manhattan) North-south avenue in Manhattan, New York

Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, though today the name changes twice. At 59th Street/Columbus Circle it becomes Central Park West, where it forms the western boundary of Central Park. North of 110th Street/Frederick Douglass Circle it is known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard before merging onto Harlem River Drive north of 155th Street.

Kelly Jo Minter American actress (born 1966)

Kelly Jo Minter is an American actress. Minter made her acting debut as "The Pilot" in an after-school short movie of the same name in 1984. She made her film debut as Lorrie in Mask (1985). She subsequently portrayed Denise Green in Summer School (1987), Maria in The Lost Boys (1987), Charlotta in Miracle Mile (1988), Yvonne Miller in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), LaDonna in House Party (1990), Cheryl in Popcorn (1991), and Ruby Williams in The People Under the Stairs (1991). Outside of film, Kelly has made guest appearances on a variety of television series including Hill Street Blues (1987), A Different World (1988), Martin (1993), ER (1996), Providence (2001), and Strong Medicine (2002). In 2010, she appeared as herself in the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

Manhattan Plaza Residential skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

Manhattan Plaza is a large federally subsidized residential complex of 46 floors and 428 feet (130 m) at 400 and 484 West 43rd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1977, it has 1,689 units and about 3,500 tenants. 70% of the tenants are from the performing arts, 15% are neighborhood residents, and 15% are elderly. It occupies the city block bounded north by 43rd Street, east by Ninth Avenue, south by 42nd Street, and west by Tenth Avenue. Developed by HRH Construction, since January 2004 it has been owned by The Related Companies. Manhattan Plaza is the subject of a documentary titled Miracle on 42nd Street, released in 2017.

Larry Pine American actor (born 1945)

Larry Pine is an American actor.

Westside Theatre

The Westside Theatre is an off-Broadway performance space at 407 West 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The building houses two auditoriums: the Upstairs Theatre, which seats 270, and the Downstairs Theatre, which features a thrust stage and has a seating capacity of 249. Formerly known as the Chelsea Theatre Center and the Westside Arts Theatre, the building was renovated in 1991.

<i>Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones</i> 1980 television film directed by William A. Graham

Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, also called The Mad Messiah, is a 1980 television miniseries about the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones, and their 1978 mass suicide at Jonestown. Based on the book by Charles A. Krause, entitled Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account, the film was originally shown on television on April 15, 1980.

Nanette Burstein is an American film and television director. Burstein has produced, directed, and co-directed several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance Special Jury Prize winning film On the Ropes.

<i>The Collector of Bedford Street</i> 2002 American film

The Collector of Bedford Street is a 2002 documentary film about director Alice Elliott's neighbor, Larry Selman, a community activist and fundraiser who had an intellectual disability.

Alice Elliott is a director, a writer, producer, university teacher, advocate for the disabled, and a member of New Day Films, an educational film distribution cooperative.

Silver Towers Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan, New York

The Silver Towers are twin residential buildings in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The 60-story buildings stand on the west side of Eleventh Avenue between 41st Street and 42nd Street near the Hudson River and contain 1,359 units. The towers are tied with 599 Lexington Avenue as the 98th tallest buildings in New York. The project includes a 75-foot (23 m) pool, the largest in a New York City residential building, as well as a quarter-acre public park on the west side of the towers. The Silver Towers were completed in June 2009.

<i>Music by Prudence</i> 2010 American film

Music by Prudence is a 2010 short documentary film directed by Roger Ross Williams. It tells the story of the then 24-year-old Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhena, and follows her transcendence from a world of hatred and superstition into one of music, love, and possibilities.

Hells Kitchen Park Public park in Manhattan, New York

Hell's Kitchen Park is a 0.58-acre (0.23 ha) park in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, New York City.

<i>Breathe</i> (2017 film) 2017 film

Breathe is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Andy Serkis in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by William Nicholson. The film stars Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander, Ed Speleers and Dean-Charles Chapman; it tells the story of Robin Cavendish, who became paralysed from the neck down by polio at the age of 28.

Atelier is a residential condominium skyscraper located in Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York City. The skyscraper stands at 521 ft and includes 478 individual units spanning 46 floors.

Camp Jened was a summer camp for disabled people in the state of New York that became a springboard for the disability rights movement and independent living movement in the United States. Many campers and counselors became disability rights activists, such as Judith Heumann, James LeBrecht, and Bobbi Linn.

<i>Miracle on 42nd Street</i> 2017 American film

Miracle on 42nd Street is a 2017 documentary film that delves into the history and impact of the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood in New York City. The documentary is narrated by Chazz Palminteri and features interviews with people involved with the development of the project as well as previous tenants such as Alicia Keys, Terrence Howard, Donald Faison, Larry David, Samuel L. Jackson, and many others. It is directed by Alice Elliott, an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker. Mary Jo Slater, the producer, and Lisa Shreve, the consulting editor, are both previous tenants of the building. The film opened in November 2017 at the Doc NYC film festival.

Amanda Leduc is a Canadian writer. She is known for her books Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space and The Centaur's Wife.

References

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