Sofia works as a location scout for a TV pilot filming in New York City. It’s her job to find the homes, businesses, and exteriors where the show will be filmed. Driving around the city’s different neighborhoods, she enters the private spaces of strangers to photograph their cozy apartments and eclectic shops, stepping into the fabric of their lives while trying to satisfy the demands of her erratic employers. Over a day filled with these encounters, Sofia witnesses moments of curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet tension until her work takes a sudden, personal turn. Drawing from her own experience as a location scout, writer-director Paula González-Nasser captures the poetry and costs of being a young creative. Her celebrated directorial debut The Scout crafts a contemplative exploration of urban disconnection, following one woman’s journey through other people’s worlds as she struggles to find her own.

Following the finale of his TV series, filmmaker John Wilson looks to the bedrock of his beloved New York City for inspiration and structure. Concrete, the world’s most widely used building material, appears as an ever-present life force, and John sets out to make the definitive documentary on the matter. To tell this seemingly drab story, he decides to use the industry-approved Hallmark formula to increase his movie’s appeal. But his foundation soon begins to crumble—literally and figuratively—as he struggles to balance artistic freedom with the realities of the modern film industry.