A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Sometimes the Only Way to Move Forward is to Go Back.

A coming-of-age drama about writer/director Dito Montiel's youth, the film captures the mid-1980s in the toughest neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Dito (Robert Downey Jr.), called home after 15 years because his father (Chazz Palmintieri) is ill, encounters old friends - the ones he lost, the ones he left behind, the ones he can't help but remember. These are Dito's "saints." An honest account of a bittersweet return to a neighborhood where relationships can never be what they once were, Dito's story is about coming to terms with a father's rage and a father's love.

A successful writer living in Los Angeles is summoned home to Queens by his mother when his father becomes seriously ill. As he finds himself forced to confront the childhood events that shaped him, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters living through a sweltering 1986 summer in New York. This bittersweet return to a neighborhood where relationships can never be what they once were boils down to coming to terms with misplaced love, reconciling with family, and embracing the ghosts of one’s past.