AFTER FREEDOM, a unique portrait of "outsiders'" struggle to survive in America, is a raw and realistic presentation of a grown man caught between his desperate need for an identity versus his sense of debt to those who got him to this country.

Writer-Director, Vahé Babaian, in his first feature film, has created a character-driven tale about the experience of Michael Abcarian, a young Armenian man living in Glendale, California, as he confronts his growing sense of obligation to his father, Leon, who had sacrificed everything to get his family to America. Leon, in his late 50s, has just lost his wife and is forced to face his own survival issues -- if he could only drive a car on an LA freeway, he might even be able to get a job, which would reduce his own guilt about being a burden to his son.

In this realistic portrait of a man with a tremendous desire to be responsible for himself and his family, he nonetheless must confront the conflicting moral codes represented by Avo, the blow-hard who defends his honor with force, and Ana, Michael' s fiancee, who continually goads him into facing the fact that maturity doesn't always include getting his own way. In Michael's struggle to "fit in," he faces not only what it means to be on the outside, but at what price to gain entrance into respectability.

Another of Michael's friends, Mato, is in an even more confused position; he's desperate to bring his own brother here, and, so resorts to risky and illegal means to achieve that goal. Michael, whom Mato acknowledges loves him like a brother, takes a strong stand against it, but Mato, plagued by his youth, doesn't follow the advice... and has his final confrontation at the Mexican border.

In this web of relationships marked by the need to grow up, how can Michael achieve his independence of spirit, without guilt at leaving behind those to whom he feels he may owe his own strength?

In AFTER FREEDOM, we are allowed to observe life play itself out. We see this extraordinarily real group of individuals come to grips with the realities of an existence where there is hope alongside the harshness of this universe.