Rooftop Films is a non-profit organization whose mission is to engage and inspire the diverse communities of New York City by showcasing the work of emerging filmmakers and musicians.
In addition to their annual Summer Series – which takes place in unique outdoor venues every weekend throughout the summer – Rooftop provides grants to filmmakers, teaches media literacy and filmmaking to young people, rents equipment at low-cost to artists and non-profits, and produces new independent films. At Rooftop Films, they bring underground movies outdoors. Their full slate is below:
Friday, May 29
On the Rooftops of Industry City, 220 36th Street, Sunset Park
This is What We Mean by Short Films
OPENING NIGHT! Rooftop launches our 19th year with spectacular short filmsabout cinematic escapes.
FILMS: All Your Favorite Shows! (Danny Madden); La Nuit Américaine d’Angélique (Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet & Joris Clerté); Actor Seeks Role (Michael Tyburski); Butter Ya’Self (Julian Petschek); The Land (Erin Davis); Lesley the Pony Has an A+ Day! (Christian Larrave); Kung Fury (David Sandberg); Thank Ewe (Keith Wilson).
Saturday, May 30
Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd Street, Gowanus
7 Chinese Brothers (Bob Byington)
Bob Byington’s latest hangdog comedy, starring Jason Schwartzman and his trusty sidekick, Arrow.
Thursday, June 4 – (Free)
Metrotech Commons, Downtown Brooklyn
Sundance Film Festival Shorts
Highlights from Sundance 2015 include wild, weird and wonderful short films.
FILMS: Palm Rot (Ryan Gillis); The Face of Ukraine (Kitty Green); Papa Machete(Jonathan David Kane); Mynarski Death Plummet (Matthew Rankin); Volta(Stella Kyriakopoulos); Pop-Up Porno: m4m (Stephen Dunn); Mulignans (Shaka King); Myrna the Monster (Ian Samuels); Storm Hits Jacket (Paul Cabon).
Friday, June 5
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
Spartacus & Cassandra (Ioanis Nuguet)
An intimate cinematic portrait of two Roma children forced to become their parents’ parents.
Saturday, June 6
Industry City, Sunset Park
The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle)
Brothers locked away from society find a window to the outside through their love of film. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Wednesday, June 10
Solar One, Kips Bay
Desperate Measures: Short, Spellbinding Mysteries
Uncanny short films about images that burn into our minds and stain our brains.
FILMS: Nugget (Sara Salovaara); Gun Shy (Sam Goetz); The Breath (Fabian Kaiser); Teeth (Tom Brown & Daniel Gray); Slope Park (Dudi Dorham); Sea Devil (Dean Marcial & Brett Potter); Unicorn(Grace Nayoon Rhee); A Million Miles Away (Jennifer Reeder).
Friday, June 12
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
Welcome to Leith (Michael Beach Nichols & Christopher K. Walker)
Aryan militants invade a small North Dakota town. The town fights back.
Saturday, June 13
Industry City, Sunset Park
Love Comes Later: Romantic Short Films
These strangely funny, lovingly sexy, romantic short films are sure to turn you on (to something).
FILMS: My Baby 8L3W (Neozoon); Bottom Feeders (Matt Reynolds); Pop-Up Porno: m4f (Stephen Dunn); SMILF (Frankie Shaw); Brontosaurus (Robert Putka); Prends Moi (Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette & André Turpin); Heartless (Nara Normande & Tião); Serenity (Jack Dunphy); Cutaway (Kazik Radwanski); Pop-Up Porno: f4m (Stephen Dunn); AND A SECRET SNEAK PREVIEW FILM.
Wednesday, June 17 – (Free)
Elevated Acre, Financial District
High Jinks: Short Pranks on the Elevated Acre
Playful short films about games and pranks. Part of the Water Street “Game On” program.
FILMS: Applied Metacinema (Nieto); Spearhunter (Adam Roffman & Luke Poling); Calls to Okies: The Park Grubbs Story (Ben Steinbauer & Bradley Beesley); Unhittable: Sidd Finch and the Tibetan Fastball; (Peter Sillen);everything & everything & everything (Alberto Roldán); Migrash Mishakim(Dan Bogoslavsky); Interior. Family. (Esteve Soler).
Friday, June 19
Industry City, Sunset Park
New York Non-Fiction
It’s your city. Take a Look.
FILMS: Call of Duty (Matt Lenski); Hopkins & Delaney LLP (Sean Buckelew);Manhattan One Two Three Four (Tomonari Nishikawa); The Sucklord (Joey Garfield); Videos of Strange Caliber (Josh Freed); Eric, Winter to Spring (Danya Abt); Half-Sour (Sean McGing, & Mary Ann Rothberg); Buffalo Juggalos (Scott Cummings); Stop (Reinaldo Marcus Green).
Saturday, June 20
Industry City, Sunset Park
Dark Toons
Bizarre, poetic, animated shorts featuring surreal worlds and surprising twists and turns.
FILMS: Cruising (Zachary Zezima); Démontable (Douwe Dijkstra); Jiro Visits the Dentist (Gina Kamentsky); TORO (Lynn Kim); Day 40 (Sol Friedman); Upon the Rock (James Bascara); Sun Elephant (Peter Millard); A Horse Throat (David Barlow-Krelina); Sports (Brian Smee); Canis Marc Riba & Anna Solanas; Color Neutral (Jennifer Reeves); Small People With Hats (Sarina Nihei); Pond (Josh Shaffner); Dead Dog (Hannah Jacobs); OM Rider (Takeshi Murata).
Friday, June 26
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
Sam Klemke’s Time Machine (Matthew Bate)
A free-wheeling and non-fiction portrait of an extra-ordinary nobody, 35 years in the making.
Thursday, July 2
Trilok Fusion Center for Arts, Clinton Hill
It Seemed So Real: Documentary Shorts
A program of dazzling documentaries that challenge our understanding of every observation.
FILMS: Sound of a Million Insects, Light of a Thousand Stars (Tomonari Nishikawa): Lopapeysa (David Scott Kessler); On The Spot: Gaza – Chronicles of a Conflict (Eszter Cseke & Andras S. Takacs); Starting Point (Michał Szcześniak);Bär (Pascal Flörks).
Friday, July 3
Location TBA
Men Go To Battle (Zachary Treitz)
A Civil War epic of intimate proportions, written & directed by Rooftop FilmFund Grantees.
PRECEDED BY American Renaissance (Jarred Alterman & Ryan Scafuro)
Explore the fantastic world of Elizabethan England… in a small town in upstate New York.
Tuesday, July 7
Location TBA
Tangerine (Sean Baker)
The riotous Christmas tale of a transgender prostitute searching for the pimp that broke her heart. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Friday, July 10
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
Bloomin’ Mud Shuffle (Frank V. Ross)
A charming drama about a housepainter in love from one of the Midwest’s finest indie auteurs.
PRECEDED BY Meat (Michael Forstein)
Desperate for work, Darren agrees to a one day trial as a door to door meat salesman.
Saturday, July 11
Industry City, Sunset Park
Romeo is Bleeding (Jason Zeldes)
In downtrodden region of Northern California, the youth of a city mount an urban adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
Friday, July 17 – (Free)
Metrotech Commons, Downtown Brooklyn
Field Niggas (Khalik Allah)
A visceral documentary captures the inhabitants and sultry streets of Harlem in mid-summer.
PRECEDED BY Santa Cruz del Isolte (Luke Lorentzen)
A community of about 600 people live on one of the most densely populated islands in the world; a way of life that can no longer continue with ease.
Saturday, July 18
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
The Chinese Mayor (Hao Zhou)
The fascinating life of a bureaucrat restoring ancient ruins at the expense of his own career.
Friday, July 24
Industry City, Sunset Park
{THE AND} Game Live Experience (THE SKIN DEEP)
An interactive social experiment that explores the labyrinths of human intimacy.
{THE AND} Marcela & Rock (THE SKIN DEEP)
A short documentary that brings the viewer into the emotional space of a modern day relationship.
Saturday, July 25
Industry City, Sunset Park
First Comes Love: Romantic Short Films
Romantic short films about heartbreak, foolish devotion, and the ephemeral flash of love.
FILMS: Minor Monuments (Joe Kowalski & Zoe Logan); Nena (Alauda Ruiz de Azúa); Fifteen (Maurilio Martins); Gary Has an AIDS Scare (Joe Callander); She Walks (Victoria Visco); My Gal, Rosemarie (Jason Tippet); Feelings (Hannah Jacobs).
Wednesday, July 29th – (Free)
Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens (Cédric Dupire & Gaspard Kuentz)
A compelling and hypnotic glimpse into one of India’s wildest carnivals.
PRECEDED BY The Golden Legend (Olivier Smolders)
Collector of cursed musicians, unreasonable murderers, fairground freaks, paranoid revolutionaries, flatulists and suicidal hermits, a psychiatric patient presents a gallery of the historic figures he is haunted by.
Thursday, July 30 – (Free)
Brookfield Place, Financial District
Animation Block Party
Rooftop Films is proud to co-present the opening night of Animation Block Party, the premier animation festival on the East Coast, dedicated to exhibiting all genres of the world’s best independent, professional and student animation.
FILMS: TBA
Saturday, August 8
Location TBA
Divine Location (Michael Loeken & Ulrike Franke)
A subtly delightful comic portrait of a small German town undergoing huge changes.
Saturday, August 15
Industry City, Sunset Park
Finders Keepers (Bryan Carberry & Clay Tweel)
A man finds a dismembered foot in an auctioned meat smoker. Then things get strange. Courtesy of The Orchard.
Tuesday, August 18
Industry City, Sunset Park
Digging for Fire (Joe Swanberg)
Jake Johnson digs for answers in Joe Swanberg’s latest indie-star-studded drama. Courtesy of The Orchard.
Saturday August 22
Industry City, Sunset Park
Rooftop Shots
CLOSING NIGHT! Rooftop concludes 19th year with stunning short films about saying goodbye.
FILMS: Kukka & Hauta (Tomi Malkki); Blobby (Laura Stewart); Sleepers’ Beat(Anastasia Kirillova); We Will Stay In Touch About It (Jan Zabeil); Bloedhond(Mees Peijnenburg); Last Base (Aslak Danbolt); Le Mal du Citron (Jeremy Rosenstein & Kaspar Schiltknecht); Sleeping Giant (Andrew Cividino).
Show details (unless otherwise noted):
8:00 p.m. Doors Open
8:30 p.m. Live Music
9:00 p.m. Film Begins
11:00 p.m. After-party
$15 online or at the door (select shows free) includes live music, film and after-parties.
For more information and updates please visit their website at www.rooftopfilms.com.