You are invited to join the Acton Institute on Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at Celebration Cinema Studio Park for an advance screening of POVERTY TRAP, a new film about how big plans to end poverty broke the promise of America and what communities are doing to renew it.

Please join us at 5:30 p.m. for a pre-screening cocktail hour with heavy hors d'oeuvres at Midtown, and then transition to the theater in Celebation Cinema for the film screening and discussion. 
 

EVENT PROGRAM

• ​5:30 p.m. | Pre-screening cocktail hour with heavy hors d'oeuvres

• ​6:30 p.m. | Welcome and screening of POVERTY TRAP

• ​8:10 p.m. | Q&A with filmmakers and local leaders

• 8:30 p.m. | Post-reception
   

​LOCATION

Celebration Cinema Studio Park
123 Ionia Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

PARKING

Complimentary parking is available in the Studio Park ramp. Enter at 120 Ottawa Ave. SW and take your parking ticket inside for validation.
 

EVENT ATTIRE

​​The event dress code is business casual.

From the creators of the award-winning documentary Poverty, Inc. comes a new film about social and material poverty in the United States. POVERTY TRAP examines how big plans to end poverty broke the promise of America—and what communities are doing to renew it.

From the legacy of urban renewal and the War on Poverty to today's sprawling network of social programs, many attempts to fight poverty have kept people stuck. As Lee Moore of Jackson, Mississippi puts it: "It's hard to make it out."

Drawing on more than 130 interviews across 16 states, the film traces a sweeping story of policy failure and lost communities, but also redemption—finding purpose after prison, dignity reclaimed from addiction and homelessness, and revival around “a little garden” in South Dallas.

POVERTY TRAP exposes the tragedy of treating human struggle as a technical problem to be managed and solved by experts. It points toward something different: the untapped capacity of people to transform their own lives and communities. 

ABOUT THE ACTON INSTITUTE

​Acton Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks on the relationship between religious principles, morality, and free economic institutions. The institute’s mission is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.

Located in Grand Rapids, Mich., USA, the Acton Institute conducts research, publishes, and offers educational programs for religious leaders, students, business leaders and policymakers around the world. For more information, visit acton.org.

​To learn more about the Acton Institute, visit acton.org.