Peter Cohn

At the beginning of a nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim seems particularly troubled. His sponsor encourages him to talk that night, the first time in seven months, so he does - and leaves the meeting right after. As Jim wanders the night, searching for some solace in his old stomping grounds, bars and parks where he bought drugs, the meeting goes on, and we hear the stories of survivors and addicts - some, like Louis, who claim to have wandered in looking for choir practice, who don't call themselves alcoholic, and others, like Joseph, whose drinking almost caused the death of his child - as they talk about their lives at the meeting

The film chronicles the ongoing struggles of passengers who were aboard the Golden Venture, an immigrant smuggling ship that ran aground near New York City in 1993. Passengers had paid at least $30,000 to be brought to the U.S. from China's Fujian Province, expecting to arrive indebted but unnoticed. But a seemingly golden opportunity quickly evolved into a hellish descent through the cruel whims of U.S. immigration policy.

Kim, a Duluth, MN mother of three, is at the center of this compelling exploration of gender violence. As Kim and her daughters flee to a domestic violence shelter, we follow the harrowing struggles in a single-parenting survivor's quest to find work, housing and peace of mind. This multi-level narrative also examines the causes of domestic violence and solutions that have evolved to stop it.

Palestinians and Israelis pursue conflicting visions of justice in the West Bank, zeroing in on the explosive issue of the Israeli settlements: its protagonists are both Israeli settlers and the Palestinians and Israelis who oppose them.