Dogs & Tacos (2016)

Dogs and Tacos presents one afternoon/evening in the life of Alma Pantaleon, a high school junior in South-Central Los Angeles, starting with her after-school job at local taqueria "El CIhualteco". Doña Teresa, a regular customer and a woman who both holds down a seamstress job and scrounges the area for abandoned items of worth, stops by and gives Alma a cell phone to replace her current one, which has been failing. Doña Teresa also regales Alma with tales of her little dog, which she claims is both vicious and psychic. Alma's plans to get a little homework done on a slow night are undone when Nilsen, a former boyfriend with a history of gang involvement, shows up and unceremoniously dumps his little brother, Jorge, on the curb in front of the taqueria, then drives with police sirens audible in the distance. As the afternoon turns to evening, Alma deals with a rush of business prompted by a favorable review of the restaurant while Jorge sits in the bathroom, responding to numerous text messages, all involving photos of dogs. Over the course of several hours, Alma gradually discovers that the boy has come a long way (in the wrong direction) from the sweet kid she remembered fondly, and she endeavors to teach him a life lesson.