This is a story of a man in free fall. On the road to redemption, darkness lights his way. Connected with the afterlife, Uxbal is a tragic hero and father of two who's sensing the danger of death. He struggles with a tainted reality and a fate that works against him in order to forgive, for love, and forever.
The stories of four Hispanic immigrants living in New York City.
Norwegian immigrant Marta Hanson keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband and a highly-educated lodger who reads great literature to the family every evening. Through financial crises, illnesses and the small triumphs of everyday life, Marta maintains her optimism and sense of humor, traits she passes on to her aspiring-author daughter, Katrin.
The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The promoter brings in sick and aged spectators, haranguing them to find hope in Nasim's strength. Aided by his son, who feeds him as he rides, Nasim grinds out the days and shivering nights. Local officials believe this may be a plot and Nasim may be a spy; they try to sabotage him as do those who bet he won't finish the week. Will desperation alone get Nasim the money? Is any triumph an illusion?
When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
A comedy centered on a has-been coach who is given a shot at redemption when he's asked to run his local high school's girls basketball team
Thimbo wants to be a football player. Malik dreams of managing his own business. Demba just thinks of going to a better place.
This short story of immigration and forbidden love follows Lucy as she discovers her pregnancy and decides to visit her alcoholic mother for advice.
A young Mexican woman crosses the border in search of the American dream, only to instead find her worst nightmare lying within.
El Hadj is studying in Paris. He is one of the young Senegalese men who have come to Paris since the French colony became independent to get a good education so that he can serve his fatherland on his return. Unexpectedly he is suddenly confronted by a problem with his residence papers, just because he has arranged an extension too late. His pleasant life filled with good prospects has gone in one fell swoop. He faces a dilemma. He can stay illegally in France, the country where he feels at home, where he has his friends, has fallen in love and can drink water from the tap. Or he can return (without graduating) to the 3rd-world country of Senegal to use the knowledge he has acquired. It is not only a practical choice. It comes down to the question of who he is, who he thought he could be.
Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.
In Marseille, the young Serbian-Albanian Adria Shala is an illegal immigrant traumatized by her past. Every now and then Adria recalls her life in Kosovo, when she was saved from rape by a deserter called Srdjan Vasiljevic in 1999. They move to Belgrade where Srdjan becomes a gangster, dealing weapons and becoming an assassin. Adria learns how to shoot and helps Srdjan with his work at first, becoming his mistress later.
In the dark night, off the Comoros archipelago, Patron learns how to become « Commandant ». Soon he will take his first clandestine passengers to Mayotte.
To the Rider his moped is everything. As a pizza delivery driver it is his livelihood. As a breadline straddling, immigrant father it is his family’s anchor. It takes his wife to work. It gets his daughter to school. So when one night the moped is stolen, his world collapses. He has to get back his bike – or replace it – in whatever way possible, before his next shifts starts. If he fails, he won’t just lose his job, he will lose it all. He tries to ask the few familiar faces for help in this unfamiliar, disorienting city. However, as he runs out of time and his options are wearing thin, his moral compass begins to crack and he grows more and more willing to forgo his conscience in order to save himself and his family.
Author Ayn Rand becomes involved with a much younger and married man, to the dismay of those close to her.
Conrad is a gay man living in NYC. He's also CEO of an ad agency and by nature a control freak. Although Conrad is still in love with Martin (his ex), he hires a young Aussie hustler named Tyler, first for a night and then to work for his company. Things get increasingly complicated as Conrad tries to rekindle things with Martin. Meanwhile Tyler (who's daytime name is Ian) falls for Michael his new supervisor
Reefa Hernandez Jr, an 18-year-old Colombian immigrant and talented artist spending his last summer in Miami with friends, family and his new girl Frankie before moving to New York City on an art scholarship.
In the early 1970s, Lakhdar, an Algerian peasant, is forced to leave his desert land and his family for France, but immigration weighs on him and he dreams of returning. This day arrives, he walks in Paris, events decide otherwise.
An undocumented immigrant receives a heartwarming yet heartbreaking phone call from his daughter across the border.
A young woman leaves her abusive husband in Holland to seek refuge in St. Maarten. But the law has changed since the island obtained country status and she is stranded at the airport. The Chief Immigration Officer is a man of integrity and exemplary service, who is torn between enforcing the new law and instinctively helping a woman he doesn’t know and whom he meets on the anniversary of his wife’s death.