AllMovie

Three exiles struggle to make sense of their new lives in New York's Hell's Kitchen in this independent drama from writer and director Steve Staso. Wael (Wael Noureddine) fled Beirut and now works as a cook in a Ninth Avenue diner, having left behind a daughter who barely remembers him. Luz (Daisy Payero) left Colombia to come to America, where she works long hours in a nail salon and tries to write a novel at night. And Syl (Courtney Webster) left his home in Harlem after serving three tours of duty in Iraq to find some sort of peace as the superintendent of a shabby apartment building. On one unlucky evening, Syl gets drunk and lands in jail, Luz goes out on a man who tries to drug and rape her, and Wael learns the village that used to be his home was been leveled by Israeli bombs. But fate also brings three together, and they forge a friendship that will sustain them in their new lives. Cellar was an official selection at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.