A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is writer/director Dito Montiel’s candid debut capturing his youth in the mid-1980s in the toughest neighborhood of Astoria, Queens.

Exuding the rawness and authenticity of such classic urban dramas as “Kids,” “Mean Streets,” “Do The Right Thing” and “Saturday Night Fever,” the film is based on Montiel’s memoir of the same name. The film won both the Dramatic Directing Award and a Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Performance at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

Dito (Robert Downey Jr.) is a successful writer living in Los Angeles, who is summoned home by his mother (Dianne Wiest) to Astoria after a 15-year absence when his father (Chazz Palminteri) becomes seriously ill. Memories of his youth come flooding back as he revisits the old neighborhood, attempts to rebuild a relationship with his father and encounters his “saints” – Dito’s few childhood friends who aren’t in prison or dead.

As Dito finds himself whisked back into the youthful events that shaped him, an unforgettable cast of characters unfolds to the sweltering heat of summer 1986. These include Laurie (Melonie Diaz), Dito’s childhood sweetheart; Mike O’Shea (Martin Compston), a transplanted Scot with an Irish name who dreams of becoming a punk rock musician; Giuseppe (Adam Scarimbolo), a reckless, destructive and possibly insane member of Dito’s street posse; and the unforgettable Antonio (Channing Tatum), Dito’s cocky and volatile best friend grappling with an abusive father.

An honest, unflinching account of bittersweet relationships that can never be what they once were, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints is a poignant look at untangling misplaced love, reconciling with family and embracing the ghosts of your past.

Visit the film's website at firstlookstudios.com

A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS opens on Friday, October 13 at Landmark's Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak.