Univers'l 1997

Directed by Anna Nicholas

No one's getting along at the Univers'l strip mall in So Central LA on April 29, 1992, the day the Rodney King verdicts come down. An African-American liquor store owner has a nervous crush on a Vietnamese manicurist. A rich Beverly Hills housewife who wants to help "you people" by building a womens' shelter has just had her Mercedes stolen. The Iranian dry cleaners have destroyed a dress, a group of Swedish equestrians is hopelessly lost, and Kong, the Korean landlord, is missing. With a relentless hyperkinetic visual energy and creeping sense of impending terror, UNIVERS'L captures one long day in a rundown mini-mall when the riots engulf the city.