Mike Ott
31-year-old Cory lives with his mom. Despite a set of serious life choices facing him, Cory’s main priority is to get a new tattoo sleeve, which he can hardly afford, so he sets out to get a job with the sup
Five unique individuals in pursuit of a big life change. Through auditions set up in small towns across Southern California, the film shows genuine characters with big Hollywood aspirations who, for various reasons, have never had the opportunity to pursue their dreams.
Dreaming of fame and fortune, a local Denver performer hires two indie filmmakers to come to town and make a film with him as the star.
A conversation about love and life in the California desert. Another collaboration between Ott and one-of-a-kind actor Cory Zacharia (Littlerock), the two forge a slice of character and an idiosyncratic portrait of loneliness.
After crossing into the U.S. with no family to speak of, young Cecilia finds herself in the charge of Francisco, a lonely Cuban immigrant long separated from his own family. Francisco operates a way station for border crossers on the outskirts of Lake Los Angeles, a surreal, desiccated lakebed in the California desert. While he copes with the alienation of living alone in a foreign land and the impossibility of realizing the American dream, Cecilia aimlessly wanders the dusty landscape, accompanied only by her fantastical imagination and distant memories of motherly love.
Friends Cory and Anna are drifting through life, struggling to find their place. Cory is sick of life in the desert and wants to be on a reality show so he can prove to his brother that he isn't a screw-up. Anna is in the country illegally, selling sex to save enough money to take her citizenship test. When Cory's brother visits and Anna's dying grandmother takes a turn for the worst, the two are forced to examine the direction of their lives
Fresh out of the Navy, Pete Church returns to his hometown on Thanksgiving to track down an alcoholic father he hasn’t seen in years. Unable to pick up the scent on his own, he calls his older brother Bob who has remained in town building a business and a family. The estranged siblings hit a series of old bars, but while Pete is intent on finding their father, Bob just wants to drink and reconnect with his little brother. Along the way, they’re joined by Gene, a barroom hustler. He promises to lead the brothers to their father (as long as they buy the beer). Desperate, they accept Gene’s half-cocked guidance through the small town dives. As the quest falters, the drinking increases; old grievances arise, and the brothers must face the past and each other.
A pair of Japanese siblings get stranded in small-town California and become friends with other twentysomethings they meet, despite the complete lack of a common verbal language.
A young man lives in a trailer park on the outskirts of Los Angeles, he goes to community college, has no real friends, no girlfriend, and works part time at The Home Depot. With an obsession for Steven Spielberg and enrolled in a film production class, he is sure all his misery can change, so he sets out to make his cinematic debut. He hopes his film is his ticket out of his mundane life and into a world of popularity, women and success. And he just may be on his way, if he doesn't self-destruct first.
Newhall, California sits about thirty miles north of Los Angeles, not quite the middle of nowhere, but not exactly a real city either. It's somewhere in between. A place where the youth work at Video Depot, go to community college, struggle with jocks and townies, and all do their best to understand politics, their careers, their love life and self-image. It's here that Jordan, Molly, Tammy, and Lloyd are about to understand that in life you don't always get what you want. Sometimes you're stuck never leaving home, never fitting in, or never really knowing who your friends are. This is their transition toward growing up and realizing that real life doesn't always end up like a movie.
