This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.

Three escaped convicts from the 1920s are led on an odyssey through the Old South in search of loot stashed at one of their homes. The house is scheduled to be flooded out by a new dam, so time is of the essence.

It is August 26. It is 1933. During the heat of summer in an Italian neighborhood in South Philly, it is the day that La Paloma--the newest movie theater in the neighborhood--opens. Until 6 pm, there is a special rate: get in for only 25 cents. Movie-mad Gennaro sets out to get two bits, spending all day roaming the streets, looking for odd jobs that will pay enough for him to afford a matinee. Gennaro's quest takes place in an America where the only...