Free Screening of “The Beautiful Spark” + Conversation

You’re invited to the free screening of La belle étincelle (English: The Beautiful Spark) by Hervé Mimran (2023) loosely based on the truly touching story of a French restaurant that employs people with disability.

The movie will be followed by a short conversation on the movie’s main themes (food, disability, employment) with Katie Horan (Princeton University) and the team of the local restaurant, The Blue Bears, that also works with people with IDDs (intellectual and developmental disability).

Practical information
Open to everyone, including families and young audiences. In French with English subtitles, the screening will start at 4:00 PM on Sunday, November 24th, 2024, and will last approximately 90 minutes. Followed by a 45-minute conversation. Doors open at 3:45 PM.

Synopsis
Loosely inspired by La Belle Étincelle eatery in Paris’s 15th arrondissement, The Beautiful Spark tells the tale of two men whose worlds could not be further apart. Philippe, a celebrity chef awaiting his second Michelin star, is endowed with a temperament even more out of control than his ego. Noé, a young man with a pitch-perfect olfactory sense — and who happens to be autistic — spends his days making sandwiches in a food truck. When they’re both fired on the same day, Noé’s devoted mother, Virginie, hatches the far-fetched scheme of launching a restaurant with “a little something extra” — the majority of its employees are developmentally-disabled young people. Like its real-life namesake, The Beautiful Spark is clearly a socially-inclusive, feel-good romp with a heart of gold.