Secret Mall Apartment (2025) on Netflix
NR20251h 32mDocumentary
In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders, Michael Townsend among them, build a secret apartment in the Providence Place mall and stay there four years, filming with cameras from the mall's RadioShack.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.0/103,584 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Michael Townsend is one of the eight Rhode Islanders who spend four years in a secret room they build inside the Providence Place mall in Providence, beginning in 2003. They buy inexpensive Pentax Optio cameras at the mall's RadioShack and record much of what goes on in the room. Over nearly 15 years Townsend and the others turn down more than 30 filmmakers who want to make a documentary about it, and the eight of them meet again for this one 17 years later. The film also follows how the public artwork the group made outside the mall connected to the room.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Secret Mall Apartment (2025)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For nearly 15 years, Michael Townsend and his fellow artists turned down "north of 30 directors" who wanted to make a documentary about the secret apartment. Townsend only agreed after meeting director Jeremy Workman in Greece, where Workman was filming Lily Topples the World.
- The group behind the secret apartment filmed much of their activity there with inexpensive Pentax Optio cameras that they bought at the mall's RadioShack.
- The documentary brought together the original eight participants for the first time in 17 years, after the story had lived on as an urban legend for years.
- After premiering at SXSW on March 8, 2024, its popularity earned Secret Mall Apartment the festival's first added "Buzz Screening."
