Mike S. Ryan

A look at the culture of 1980s New York.

Many years after her notorious husband, Henry Fool, fled after killing a neighbor, Fay Grim receives a visit from CIA agent Fulbright, who tells her that Henry is dead, but that some of his journals have been unearthed in France. She sets forth on a globe-trotting odyssey that soon leads to the discovery that he is alive, and his journals are more than they appear to be.

On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.

When an affluent matriarch gathers her dysfunctional family for a holiday at their Northern California lake house, her carefully constructed weekend begins to come apart at the seams, leading her to question her own role in the family.

Aviva is thirteen, awkward and sensitive. Her mother Joyce is warm and loving, as is her father, Steve, a regular guy who does have a fierce temper from time to time. The film revolves around her family, friends and neighbors.

Indifferent to the notion of inheriting his father's estate, a restless, aging New Yorker passes time with his friends in games of mock sincerity, irreverence, and recreational cruelty towards those around them.

An actress, three months post-partum, reads through fragments of the archive of Suzanne Césaire as she prepares to perform excerpts of the writer's work.

An internationally respected poet announces she is going to kill herself and needs an heir and executor. Young writers drive up the mountain to compete for the position and are challenged intellectually, emotionally, and erotically.

A pregnant woman returns to her recently-deceased grandparents’ old family home to spend time with her estranged mother. What begins as a tenuous reunion slowly turns terrifying.

As things unravel for a struggling single mother in Las Vegas, she must decide what she's willing to give up to get by.

Claire Smythson, wife of the renowned abstract artist Richard Smythson, is plunged into a late-life crisis when her husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and is in danger of not completing the paintings for his final show.

Stann is the head of a three-generation troubled French family that he struggles to support through petty crime. He puts on a strong front, but is floundering and he hates his life until a beautiful Black woman, Gloria, arrives on the scene. They secretly marry against the family’s will – not only is she Black but she is also an American. PUSHING PAST THE BAD tells an unusual story of love that transcends romance. Gloria and Stann find themselves in a world falling apart. Stann is tortured by his crazy brutal father and the rest of the family. Meanwhile, the police pursue Stann for murder but it was the father who was the assassin. Stann refuses to denounce him, and he disappears, leaving the family to Gloria who had already left behind a troubled world in the United States. Gloria is now both provocateur and mediator. A strange and poignant fable.

When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child... and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.