Homelessness & Poverty

10-year-old Harriet dreams of leaving her home, where she doesn't feel she's needed by her mother and sister Gwen. When her mother dies in a car accident, she really starts to make plans for leaving and she finally does so together with her childlike (mentally ill) friend Ricky.

The boxer Frank Diaz loses his fight card on the Christmas Eve. He goes home and tells his wife Angela Diaz. Out of the blue, his family and he are evicted and they have to move to a homeless shelter with their children Justin and Christina. Frank has an application in a real state office that calls him to see an apartment. However Frank needs to have a labor contract to keep the apartment. Frank needs to finds a job on the Christmas Eve to have an apartment for his family. But it is not easy since he is illiterate.

Lifelong friends stumble back home after high school when word goes out on Facebook that the most popular among them has died. Old girlfriends, boyfriends, new lovers, parents, your first dead friend - how do people deal? The reunion stirs up sticky feelings of love, longing and regret, and the novelty of forgiveness, mortality and gratitude.

A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW is a contemporary New York City re-visioning of the Henry James novel by the same name, written by Carroll Cartwright and Nancy Doyne. It revolves around unwitting 7-year-old Maisie, caught in the middle of a custody battle between her mother Suzanna, an aging rock star, and her father, Beale, a major art dealer. In a race to win the court's advantage, Beale marries Maisie's nanny Margo, prompting Suzanna in turn to marry friend and local bartender, Lincoln. Both forced into a battle neither wishes to be a part of, Margo and Lincoln come to empathize with Maisie's position and over time with one another's. Teased by the notion of making their own surrogate family, the trio must either submit to the will of Maisie's parents or eventually face their wrath.

Lamb, based on the novel by Bonnie Nadzam, traces the self-discovery of David Lamb in the weeks following the disintegration of his marriage and the death of his father. Hoping to regain some faith in his own goodness, he turns his attention to Tommie, an awkward and unpopular eleven-year-old girl. Lamb is convinced that he can help her avoid a destiny of apathy and emptiness, and takes Tommie for a road trip from Chicago to the Rockies, planning to initiate her into the beauty of the mountain wilderness. The journey shakes them in ways neither expects.

It's the fall of 1985. The intertwining tales of three 5th grade friends, Chris, Joe and Ted, unfold in the suburban paradise of Palo Alto, as the threat of a mountain lion looms over the community.

A story based on facts which offers a fresh take on the issue of new immigrants in the United States. Mariana totes her two children from Colombia to reunite with her husband in Queens, New York. Her life is devastatingly turned around when her husband abandons the family. The woman and her kids have to fend for themselves in a foreign country. Mariana desperately searches for work. In the end, she resourcefully navigates a surprising avenue for making some money, the city's recycling.

A kindhearted seventeen-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.

The Girl in the Book charts the journey of young woman's transformation. At the outset, Alice Harvey is a lost and self-destructive 29 year old girl unable to write, too damaged for love. When her past invades her present and forces her to confront painful memories, she shatters. Helped by her friend and a new love interest, she slowly rediscovers her creative voice.

Thirteen-year-old Ruthie Carmichael and her mother, Rita teeter on the edge of poverty, despite Rita working multiple jobs. When their landlord kicks them out, Rita uses her looks to instantly reel in a boyfriend, who takes them in. Before long, Ruthie convinces her mother to leave and they head East in search of a better life. When money runs out and their car breaks down, they find themselves stranded in a small town called Fat River where their luck finally takes a turn. Rita lands a steady job waitressing at the local diner. With enough money to pay their bills, they rent a house and Fat River becomes the first place they call home. Peter Pam, a transgender waitress, becomes Ruthie's closest friend. The townspeople become Ruthie and Rita's family. Into this quirky utopia comes smooth-talking mortgage broker Vick Ward, who entices Rita with a subprime loan. Almost as soon as Rita buys a house their fortunes change. Faced once again with the prospect of homelessness, Rita reverts to survival mode, and the price she pays to keep them out of poverty changes their lives forever.

16 year old street-wise Apple (Vanessa Hudgens) has never had an easy life. Her mother, June Bailey (Rosario Dawson), is an addict and prostitute, is verbally and physically abusive, and is grooming her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Apple knows the streets, alleys and motels like the back of her hand but wants more from her life. She possesses a tenacious, tough, indomitable spirit, and will not surrender to fate. Apple runs away from her mother and tracks down her father whom she has never known, as he was only 19 when he got Apple's mother pregnant. Apple begs her now Wall Street Broker father, Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser), to take her in. In the few days under her father's care, she learns she's become pregnant by a kid from the streets she met on the train, who now wants nothing to do with her. She is forced to leave her father's home because of her choice to give birth to the baby she is carrying. Apple runs away again, and is eventually taken under the wing of Father McCarthy (James Earl Jones), the chaplain of the local hospital after almost getting herself killed. He offers to let Apple live at a shelter for pregnant young women run by a spiritual woman named Kathy (Ann Dowd). It is here that Apple begins to tentatively interact with the other girls who are in the same predicament as she and gradually begins to make a family for herself.

A widowed ex-cop discovers that she may have a life threatening illness, and decides to go on a solo road trip in a motorized wheelchair to explore the beauty of the Southwest. On her journey, Rose discovers more than just the simple beauty of New Mexico when she meets -- and falls in love with -- Max, an old cowboy who comes to a crossroads of his own. Sometimes love takes the backroads.

Pregnant forensic psychologist Lydie Crane is hired to learn the truth behind the case of 16-year-old Stephanie Daley, who is accused of concealing her pregnancy and murdering her infant.

After their parents abandon the family, a young woman works to take care of her younger siblings.

The poignant yet humor filled story about a single mother of a teenager severely impacted by autism, forced to reckon with her daughter's future. As her child becomes an adult, what used to work, no longer does. What will sustain her daughter, and herself? A parent-child love story, when love means letting go.

Train fanatic Tom Stark's job enjoyment stops shielding him from grief over his wife Megan's now terminal cancer when Laura Danner commits suicide by planting her car on the railway just before Tom's train arrives. Tom's colleague Otis, who never got over a hobo doing the same on foot, resigns, Tom is suspended. It's even worse for Laura's fatherless son Davey, who loses his home too. He escapes from a monstrous foster-ma's home and tracks down Tom's home. Megan, who was about to leave without allowing him to get closer again during her last weeks, promises to stay if they take on Davey. Boy and childless couple soon grow on each-other, but a social worker is on Davey's trail.

Bonnie, a young, successful Latina architect, is assaulted while walking home from an evening out with friends in Brooklyn. At first, she emphatically denies the impact of what has just happened to her, rejecting her long-term boyfriend Matt's efforts to help her cope. She fights to regain normalcy and control of her life, but recovery is more complicated than expected. Her attempt to recapture the intimacy she previously had with Matt falters and cracks begin to surface in their relationship. An assault on another woman in the neighborhood only drives Bonnie further into denial, before an encounter with an at-risk woman causes her to face the truth and confront her own self-blame.