A violated girl is trapped in an underworld of shame. As a child, she was exploited by her father and his friends, and then thrown to the streets as a vulnerable teenager. Despite life going against Mel at every turn, she is determined to see the good in people and find hope before her past catches up with her.
"The Hours" is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
After getting released from prison, Eeva returns to her old home town with only a shoulder bag, cellphone and the clothes she is wearing. She wants to find her grown-up daughter, but the townspeople soon make it clear that she is not welcome.
A British woman faces a downward social climb thanks to her country's rigid and problem-ridden welfare system.
The Chemos and the Pachecos are two gangs whose adventures are witnessed by the doctor, the assistant and the social worker of a clinic where they know of the young men's problems.
EKAJ is a love story between two drifters, a naive teenager and a hustler. Ekaj meets Mecca who takes him under his care. Mecca has AIDS and multiple problems of his own. He is high all day but still manages to be the only voice of reason in Ekaj’s hopeless world. They cruise the city together looking for money and places to stay. Although Ekaj makes some money as a prostitute, he finds himself discarded, and lacking what it takes to survive in the city. Their mutual loneliness leads to genuine friendship.
In Tokyo, a girl and her boyfriend spend a night talking about their life, their precarious condition and their difficulties to earn a living, their place in the world, if ever they have one...
An unemployed construction worker heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior, who believes the man has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert.
Seven short films - each one focused on the plight of a different child protagonist.
A wealthy couple from the Pacific Palisades discovers homeless young lovers have moved into their home.
Abandoned by her father, a young woman embarks on a thousand-mile odyssey through the backroads of America where she meets a disenfranchised drifter. But despite their best efforts, all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether their love can survive their otherness.
A gothic tale of mysticism and violent crime. Two women go out into the fringe of rural culture to seek a revelation. They get trapped in a fierce place, and one murders a man with an ax after she has a vision that he is an evil thing.
While shooting a documentary on the suspicious disappearances within the homeless community, a filmmaker and his crew go missing while uncovering a terrifying and vicious secret below the city's surface.
A fast-talking lawyer transforms his body and takes a vow of silence, not to be broken until he finds out who killed his wife and daughter and has his revenge.
Small town girl Marcy comes to LA with stars in her eyes, thinking she can make it big on Search for a Star. Instead, with little money and no friends, she finds herself sleeping in her car. Things dramatically change when she meets Rose, living in a cardboard box, and Mort, a wheelchair-bound Gulf War veteran. After first fighting over territory, these three lost souls bond in friendship, protecting and supporting each other in a story that is at once profoundly funny, heart-warming and poignant.
A university research scientist, about to lose funding and status, has a lab accident and discovers he can see people's true intentions -- making his situation even worse.
A homeless, gay 17-year-old, fleeing Mormon conversion therapy, is taken under the wing of an 18-year-old, brash, Black trans sex worker. They create a competition to see who can first contract HIV, in order to secure state benefits and escape the vicious underbelly of homelessness in Atlanta.
A homeless teen and his father migrated to a small town where they meet a teenage girl who’s suffering from the horrific attacks of her abusive father. In her bleakest moment, God reveals His presence in a way she least expected.
Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?
A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.