Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a Pakistani immigrant, struggles to drag his heavy cart along the streets of New York to his corner in Midtown Manhattan. And every morning, from inside his cart he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own.

One of the most striking independent filmmakers of the last decade, Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani is a new voice in humane, neo-realist portraits of the contemporary United States. Man Push Cart, which met with acclaim at Sundance and Venice, marked him as a talent to watch.