The Public: Emilio Estevez and Alec Baldwin with Alison Stewart

Actor/director Emilio Estevez discusses his new film, The Public, with Alec Baldwin and moderator Alison Stewart. They are joined by David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, and Ryan Dowd, author of The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness. The film, which also stars Taylor Schilling, Jeffrey Wright, and Gabrielle Union (among many others), was filmed in 2017 at the Cincinnati Public Library. The story takes place during a life-threatening cold snap in the city, when a group of homeless patrons, many of them struggling with mental illness and addiction, barricade themselves inside with the help of a caring reference librarian, played by Estevez himself. What begins as an act of civil disobedience becomes a stand-off with police and a rush-to-judgment media constantly speculating about what's really happening. This David versus Goliath story tackles some of our nation's most challenging issues, homelessness and mental illness and sets the drama inside one of the last bastions of democracy-in-action: your public library.