La Cafeteria: A West of the City Story
About the Film
It's 1984 and four pre-teen best friends are enjoying a carefree day of arcade games and most importantly, a first kiss for one of them before their lives are forever changed as they witness a horrific event at the hands of their fathers. Taking place in a real place and inspired by actual events and people, La Cafeteria explores the beginnings of the Cuban mafia in Hudson County, NJ. This is the latest pilot episode based on the West of the City series in development; a suspense filled search for redemption about family, friendship & loyalty to a fault, in the dangerous world of urban corruption and dirty Jersey machine politics that spans two generations.
Director: Tom Ryan
Producers: Arian Blanco and Jim Thalman
United States // 2025 // Drama, Action // Los Shorts
20 minutes
About the Filmmaker
Tom Ryan is a writer, director, and producer who was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. He studied the media arts at New Jersey City University. In 2012, Tom founded the independent production company Theatre of Terror LLC. The first feature film the company released “FACES” (2013) premiered on October 10th at the Landmark Loews theater in Jersey City to an audience of over 350 people. The success and local popularity of the movie allowed Theatre of Terror to pursue production on the self-titled, four-film anthology “The Theatre of Terror” (2019) featuring the award-winning shorts: The Gift, The Bookworm, Abducted, and Endangered. This feature received distribution through Bayview Entertainment and led to the release of the sequel anthology, “Return to The Theatre of Terror” (2023). Other credits include the 2015 short film “RAPT”, the 2022 feature film “Ramsey”, and “Forsaken Innocents” a proof of concept being pitched to Paramount, and “Bitter Souls” a feature length horror thriller.
