Paul Wontorek

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.