Need (2005)

NEED is film #6 in the nine film 9@ Night cycle. A cinema portrait of 40-50 inner city characters living in the San Francisco Tenderloin circa 2001-2005 cast from the Tenderloin yGroup Actor's Ensemble. NEED goes into the shady alleys and smoky bars explored in many films with "noir" pedigree and genre intentions but takes a different tack. It tries to avoid the stereotypes of underworld life and the conventions of crime shows and detective series. Instead of "satin sheets, satin pillows" fatalism. it depicts the fragile friendships, the familial struggles, the competition as well as the solidarity between four women who work in the sex business in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. It is also a personal look at four distinct people and the people they love, deceive, endure and seek to know. Petite struggles to hold onto her relationship with Tyrone, a pool hustler, while Jane works as a stripper in the Gold Club. Lou, Jane's mother and a heroin addict, is a renegade aging prostitute who works the streets and bars in defiance of the pimps. Francesca manages an escort service and does phone sex. The film concentrates on the shared experiences which hold these women together and the strains of the business which threaten their friendship. In a profession which thrives on fantasy and martyrdom they struggle to hold onto their reasons for caring for each other.