Florence, Arizona

Documentary, Western - 2015

Welcome to Florence, Arizona: a cowboy town with a prison problem. Just 8,500 residents call the tiny community home—but over 17,000 inmates live there, housed in nine jails spread out over a sprawling industrial prison complex. The economic fate of the town’s inhabitants is inextricably linked with the prisons—and the townspeople are not necessarily happy about it. Director Andrea B. Scott follows four colorful characters whose lives are tied up with the prisons, including the town’s aspiring mayor, a retired correctional officer and speed shooter, a barber who longs for the town’s free-spirited cowboy days, and troubled teen Marcus, whose parents met through their prison careers. “Florence, Arizona” is a richly drawn, humorous look at a singular small town whose Wild West roots are still very much alive in its outlaw identity today. -TCFF database