The City (1998)

David Riker's critically acclaimed 1998 debut feature, LA CIUDAD is a moving tribute to the struggles and hopes of Latin American immigrants in New York City. The film explores the immigrant experience of loneliness, displacement and economic hardship in a series of four stories: a group of day laborers hired to clean bricks find themselves abandoned when tragedy strikes; a young man newly arrived from Mexico falls in love with a girl from his home village, only to lose her in the new and alien urban landscape; a puppeteer, living with his daughter in a station wagon, dreams that she'll one day learn to read; and a seamstress, desperate to send money home to her sick daughter, is forced to finally confront the injustice in the sweatshop where she labors. A strikingly authentic drama, LA CIUDAD was filmed over the course of six years with a cast of mostly non-professional actors.