Jeffrey is only 12-years-old, but he helps put food on his family’s table by working as a Santo Domingo windshield washer—and he helps feed his spirit by composing and recording music with his big brother Jeyson.

Director Yanillys Perez sensitively contrasts her loveable subject’s dreams of making it big as a reguetón singer with the complex reality of life on the streets of the Dominican Republic’s teeming capital, a place as marked by poverty as it is by beauty. Jeffrey is a tribute to the resilience of youthful aspiration even in the most daunting circumstances.

This film is also featured in the 2017 Film Festival’s HBO Ibero American Competition Film Category.