Writing
On the mean streets of New York City, a dog-eat-dog mentality reigns among the destitute citizens. In one of the many abandoned buildings in the neighborhood of Alphabet City lives the Brazilian Rita La Punta, along with her delinquent son, Thiago, and a gang of Hispanic teens charged with selling heroin and cocaine. When Rita and her young gang members get involved in a minor turf war, the violence escalates out of control, touching everyone and sparing no one.
When a substantial portion of the nation's populace falls victim to a deadly plague, the tyrannical government quarantines them in camps, offering no alternative except death. But a gutsy rebel named Torch sets out to help the afflicted by leading an underground effort to spirit the victims to humane sanctuary.
A young hustler tries to get drug money by selling a boy to a middle-aged man; his plans are disrupted when the kid dies.
Spike Fumo is an Italian kid apsiring to be a boxer. He falls in love with a rich girl, who turns out to be the daughter of a Mafia boss. Spike is threatened to leave Bensonhurst by the mob, and then goes to a poverty-stricken Puerto Rican part of Brooklyn.
How do we sustain the human spirit, hope and love in the face of a plague? Set in a dingy Lower East Side apartment in the 1980s, Beirut follows the story of Torch, a young man who is in quarantine after testing positive to a nameless disease. His girlfriend, refuses to leave him isolating alone. It’s raunchy, it’s real, it’s poetic; and it reminds us of the power of stories, and their role in fostering hope, solidarity and documentation of extraordinary times.
