Rooftop Films Reveals Bulk Of Summer Movie Lineup, Kicking Off May 29th
May 4, 2015, 4:51 p.m.
Rooftop Films, a trailblazer in the NYC outdoor summer movie scene ever since it launched way back in 1996, has just announced its lineup for its 19th season
Rooftop Films, a trailblazer in the NYC outdoor summer movie scene ever since it launched way back in 1996, has just announced its lineup for its 19th season, which starts at the end of the month with a screening in Industry City, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and on the roof of The Old American Can Factory, in Gowanus. This year’s series will feature over 40 outdoor screenings in 19 venues, with many of the buzzed-about films that recently debuted at Sundance and SXSW.
Opening night is set for Friday, May 29th, with a screening of eight short films about "epic adventures," including the NYC premiere of David Sandberg’s Kung Fury, a homage to cheesy 1980s action flicks produced with over $600,000 from Kickstarter. Here's the trailer:
On Saturday, May 30th, Rooftop Films will screen Bob Byington’s comedy 7 Chinese Brothers, starring Jason Schwartzman "as an irrepressible man-child attempting to pull his life together and win over his boss at the Quick-Lube." Schwartzman is expected to be in attendance, with a post-screening party fueled by New Amsterdam spirits to follow.
Tickets for the opening weekend go on sale Tuesday, May 5th at 11:00 a.m. on the Rooftop Films website. Here's the rest of the lineup as it stands now, with more screenings, locations, and dates T.B.A.:
Bloomin’ Mud Shuffle (Frank V. Ross)
A charming drama about a housepainter in love from one of the Midwest’s finest indie auteurs.
The Chinese Mayor (Hao Zhou)
The fascinating life of a bureaucrat restoring ancient ruins at the expense of his own career.
Digging for Fire (Joe Swanberg)
Jake Johnson digs for answers in Joe Swanberg’s latest indie-star-studded drama.
Divine Location (Michael Loeken, Ulrike Franke)
A subtly delightful comic portrait of a small German town undergoing huge changes.
Field Niggas (Khalik Allah)
A visceral documentary captures the inhabitants and sultry streets of Harlem in mid-summer.
Finders Keepers (Bryan Carberry)
A man finds a dismembered foot in an auctioned meat smoker. Then things get strange.
Goodnight Mommy (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz)
A bone-chilling Austrian thriller about two young boys and their mysteriously altered mother.
Courtesy of RADiUS-TWC.
Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens (Cédric Dupire and Gaspard Kuentz)
A compelling and hypnotic glimpse into one of India’s wildest carnivals.
Krisha (Trey Shults)
Rooftop grantee Trey Shults’ daring, SXSW-winning drama about a family on the brink.
Men Go To Battle (Zachary Treitz)
A Civil War epic of intimate proportions, written & directed by Rooftop Film Fund Grantees.
Romeo is Bleeding (Jason Zeldes)
In downtrodden region of southern California, the youth of a city mount an urban adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
Sam Klemke’s Time Machine (Matthew Bate)
A free-wheeling and non-fiction portrait of an extra-ordinary nobody, 35 years in the making.
Spartacus & Cassandra (Ioanis Nuguet)
An intimate cinematic portrait of two Roma children forced to become their parents’ parents.
Tangerine (Sean Baker)
Sean Baker’s riotous Christmas tale of a transgender prostitute searching for the pimp that
broke her heart.
Welcome to Leith (Michael Beach Nichols, Christopher K. Walker)
Aryan militants invade a small North Dakota town. The town fights back.
The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle)
The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously. But after one of the brothers escapes the apartment, the power dynamics in the house are transformed, and all the boys begin to dream of venturing out.
Special Events:
{The And}
An interactive social experiment that explores the labyrinths of human intimacy
Update, May 14: Here's the schedule and some more details:
ALL SHOW DETAILS (unless otherwise noted)
8:00PM Doors Open
8:30PM Live Music
9:00PM Film Begins
11:00PM After-party
$15 online or at the door (select shows free) includes live music, film and after-parties.
In the event of rain, screenings are indoors at the same location. Select shows have rain dates.
THE 2015 SUMMER SERIES SCHEDULE
Friday, May 29th
On the Rooftops of Industry City, Sunset Park
This is What We Mean by Short Films
OPENING NIGHT! Rooftop launches our 19th year with spectacular short films about 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 30th
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
7 Chinese Brothers (Bob Byington)
Bob Byington’s latest hangdog comedy, starring Jason Schwartzman and his trusty sidekick, Arrow.
Thursday, June 4th - (FREE SHOW)
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 5th
Old American Can Factory, Gowanus
Spartacus & Cassandra (Ioanis Nuguet)
An intimate cinematic portrait of two Roma children forced to become their parents’ parents. Courtesy of UniFrance.
Saturday, June 6th
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 10th
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 12th
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 13th
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 17th - (FREE SHOW)
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 19th
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 20th
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 26th
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. Courtesy of Visit Films.
Thursday, July 2nd
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 3rd
Location TBA
Men Go To Battle (Zachary Treitz)
A Civil War epic of intimate proportions, written & directed by Rooftop Film Fund 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 7th
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 10th
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 11th
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 17th - (FREE SHOW)
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 18th
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 24th
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 (Topaz Adizes)
A short documentary that brings the viewer into the emotional space of a modern day relationship.
Saturday, July 25th
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 SHOW)
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. Courtesy of UniFrance.
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 30th - (FREE SHOW)
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 8th
Location TBA
Divine Location (Michael Loeken & Ulrike Franke)
A subtly delightful comic portrait of a small German town undergoing huge changes.
Saturday, August 15th
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 18th
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 22nd
Industry City, Sunset Park
Rooftop Shots
CLOSING NIGHT! Rooftop concludes our 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).
THE FOLLOWING DATES AND LOCATIONS ARE TBA
Goodnight Mommy (Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz)
A bone-chilling Austrian thriller about two young boys and their mysteriously altered mother. Courtesy of RADiUS-TWC.
Krisha (Trey Shults)
Rooftop grantee Trey Shults’ daring, SXSW-winning drama about a family on the brink.
