Frederick Thornton

Injustice System

A Mother struggles to deal with the unknown condition of her incarcerated son during the worst pandemic in over 100 years.

L.A. Roll

As the pressures of daily life mount in a rapidly changing city, some residents turn to dance roller skating as an activity for release, creating a style unique to Los Angeles.

Go Back to China

When party girl Sasha Li blows through most of her trust fund, she is cut off by her father and forced to go back to China and work for the family toy business.

Suburbanite

Deep in the heart of suburbia, Grice, a twenty four year old unemployed Filipino college graduate, spends his days sleeping in and nights roaming around aimlessly on his folding bike with Diggs, his childhood friend. Grice has many big things planned, refusing to let reality stand in his way.

Lake Los Angeles

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.

Pearblossom Hwy

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

The Murder of Hi Good

The Murder of Hi Good is a true-crime revisionist western set in Northern California, 1870. It details the eventual murder of California’s most notorious Indian hunter; Hiram Good. Most historians believe that his indentured servant “Indian Ned” killed him, a native boy whom he’d raised as a son. It’s suspected that Ned was influenced by the nearby Mill Creek Indians or “diggers”, who were struggling to eke out an existence on their ancestral lands.

Viette

A young Vietnamese American teenager dreams of breaking free from her oppressive household to pursue her personal desires and forbidden love. Balancing life on the edge of two opposite worlds, will Viette ever follow her heart, or will the consequences be too overwhelming?

Sawdust City

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.

Littlerock

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.