Autistic teen Ricky lives in Far Rockaway, Queens, and while his family struggles with economic hardship, he faces the difficulties of fitting in at school. When he is scolded for skipping class, he escapes into the subway, embarking on a days-long underground odyssey among the subway’s disparate denizens as his mother wages an escalating search effort above ground. As the two parallel stories of mother and son unfold, Hurricane Sandy closes in on the city.

Filmed in the Rockaways, in part during last year’s devastating storm, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors is a film firmly rooted in its community Local director Sam Fleischner demonstrates a remarkable sense of place, both of the rarely filmed Rockaway streets and beaches and the iconic New York City subway, reawakening the viewer to its beauty, strangeness and magic. Experiencing both sides of the city through Ricky’s sensitive eyes, the audience takes a touching, sometimes fantastical journey of community and connection in and below New York City.

—Cara Cusumano