When I'm With You

Running time: 98 mins

Choosing your friends is hard, choosing your family is harder. The only family Lea has is her gay best friend and her angrily defensive teenage brother, and she's in danger of losing them both. Her brother never answers her calls or texts and seems to be falling in with the wrong crowd at school. She worries about the safety of her friend after a string of homophobic attacks and murders plague their neighborhood. On top of that, she's in love with him, but he's quickly falling in love with another man. Starkly realistic, tense, and emotional, these three characters' stories come to a head when they clash on the dark streets of New York City. - Nina Zheng