True New York

This anthology film features five well-made documentary shorts showcasing individual New Yorkers, presenting evidence of the city's variety and vitality. First up is Jordan Roth's C-Rock, an engaging piece about how teenage boys from a Bronx neighborhood take dangerous leaps from a cliff into the Harlem River as a traditional rite of passage. Next is Joshua Z Weinstein's Taxi Garage, a genial portrait of Stanley Wissak, dedicated manager of a fleet of cabs, along with his hand-picked stable of drivers (including the city's oldest cabbie and a new hire). Jeremy Workman's One Track Mind profiles Philip Coppola, who has devoted his life to writing an architectural history of the New York subway system, a project that includes hand-sketching art on the walls of each station he catalogues. Yoni Brooks's A Son's Sacrifice centers on Imran, who gives up a promising business career in order to take over his father's Queens slaughterhouse (which specializes in providing halal meat for the conservative Muslim community), despite serious doubts from regular customers. Closing the series is Black Cherokee by Sam Cullman and Benjamin Rosen, a portrait of Otis Houston, Jr., a performance artist who plies his trade along Manhattan streets while caring for his elderly father. While True New York does not explicitly articulate an overarching theme, it inevitably becomes a celebration of residents of the Big Apple whose commitment to their dreams might strike some as positively obsessive, but ultimately proves very inspiring and somehow characteristic of the can-do spirit of the city as a whole. Extras include Q&As with some of the directors. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)