Alfredo De Villa
It’s Christmastime and the far-flung members of the Rodriguez family are converging at their parents’ home in Chicago to celebrate the season and rejoice in their youngest brother’s safe return from combat overseas.
The lives of three lonely strangers intersect while commuting on New York's 1 and 9 subway lines.
Amaryllis Campos is a young, classically trained Latina ballerina, who dreams of leaving her impoverished home in Puerto Rico to pursue fame and fortune as a dancer. Amaryllis heads for New York City, where she is forced to work in a seedy strip club to make ends meet. Setting audiences afire with her erotic moves, Amaryllis quickly becomes the strip club's hottest attraction, but must finally decide between true love and realizing her dream of becoming a star.
"Washington Heights" tells the story of Carlos Ramirez, a young illustrator burning to escape the Latino neighborhood of the same name to make a splash in New York City's commercial downtown comic book scene. When his father, who owns a bodega in the Heights, is shot in a burglary attempt, Carlos is forced to put his dream on hold and run the store. In the process, he comes to understand that if he is to make it as a comic artist, he must engage with the community he comes from, take that experience back out into the world, and put it in his work.
