ROOFTOP FILMS Newsreel 2012

STAFF
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Mark Elijah Rosenberg
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Dan Nuxoll
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Genevieve DeLaurier
OUTREACH &
DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Lela Scott MacNeil
FESTIVAL MANAGER
Chantel Elassaad
TECHNICAL MANAGER
Aaron Wistar
ADVISORS
Tad Barnes, Joshua
Breitbart, Amy Dotson,
Bruce Levingston,
Lucila Moctezuma,
Dana O’Keefe, Josh
Penn, Philip Rosenberg,
Molly Thompson, Nicole
Tschampel
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David Belt
Jim Browne
Anne Carey
Michael Clark
Catherine Martinez
Brian Newman
Casimir Nozkowski
Sarah Palmer
Mark Elijah Rosenberg
ROOFTOP FILMS IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:
City Council Members:
Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Dan Garodnick, Sara
Gonzalez, Letitia James, Brad Lander, Stephen
Levin, Melissa Mark Viverito, Jumaane Williams,
NYC Manhattan and Brooklyn Delegations
festology
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
Rooftop Films depends on the generous support of our fans and filmmakers, and on
foundations and corporate sponsors. We welcome any contributions you can make to help us
sustain our work. Tax-deductible donations to Rooftop Films can be made online at
www.rooftopfilms.com/info/donate.html, or checks can be mailed to our address.
One of the most popular
seasonal pastimes for cinemaminded
New Yorkers.
— The Wall Street Journal
Where’s the best place to find
underground indie films in
Gotham this summer? Look up.
— Variety
Rooftop is a rare opportunity
to watch exquisitely fresh
films, mingle with super cool
and mellow crowds, while also
discovering new places.
— The Huffington Post
The annual Rooftop Films
summer series…is well on its
way to becoming a New York
institution à la the Yankees or
Coney Island.
— amNY
Individual Donors:
John Sanger, Laura Heberton,
Philipp Engelhorn
And 566 additional donors
(visit our website for a full list of donors)
ROOFTOP FILMS
232 3rd Street, Suite D101
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 417-7362
info@rooftopfilms.com
www.rooftopfilms.com
ROOFTOP FILMS Newsreel 2012
ROOFTOP FILMS has grown from a single screening in 1997
into one of the most dynamic and diverse film organizations
in the world. As a non-profit corporation, our mission is to
engage and inspire diverse communities through film. We
attract massive crowds and widespread media attention by
showing amazing movies to tens of thousands in gorgeous
outdoor spaces. We fund and help produce new films, teach
classes to budding young filmmakers, and enable dozens of
screenings with equipment rentals at low-cost. Rooftop Films
is a vital support system for independent filmmakers.
Rooftop directly contributed to my growth as a filmmaker;
they pulled me out of the darkness, put my films in front of an
enthusiastic audience, turned me on to many up and coming,
talented artists, and pushed me to create a new film.
– Zachary Volker, 2011 Filmmakers’ Fund recipient
Rooftop Films is best known for our Summer Series. With
an audience of 30,000 in 2011, we have become one of the
best-attended film events in the country. Rooftop gathers
almost 3,000 film submissions a year, including more shorts
than almost any other film festival, guaranteeing that the
films we show are unique, varied, and outstanding. Our films
include both world premieres and festival award-winners. The
artists we present range from first-time filmmakers to longtime
outsider artists, from seasoned film professionals to
under-represented artists such as people of color, women,
filmmakers from other countries and political filmmakers. We
provide a forum and an audience for filmmakers who make
deeply personal cinema; films that offer intimate looks into
individual lives and distinct communities worldwide.
The place to be this summer for a first look at some of today’s
most exciting independent films is not your favorite multiplex,
but a rooftop in New York City... Rooftop Films has grown into an
internationally recognized and highly respected film festival.
– Village Voice
As much as we’ve grown, the magic of Rooftop remains the
same: we have an unyielding commitment to supporting
independent cinema in a variety of engaging and innovative
ways. Rooftop is more than a film festival—we are a
collaboration between filmmakers and festivals, between
audience and artists, venues and neighborhoods, ensuring
that filmmaking remains a vital part of the culture in New
York City and beyond.
My Rooftop Films experience was literally one of the best
nights of my life. They turned my personal film into a real
event. It was truly magical. There is no other place like
Rooftop in New York or even the country.
– Robert Greene (Fake It So Real)

2011 HIGHLIGHTS
Rooftop screened films from 32 countries: 166 shorts and 24 features, including 19 New York or U.S. or World Premieres.
30,000 people attended our 50 screenings at 17 different outdoor locations. 2011 was the most successful year in Rooftop
Films’ 15 year history!
US AND WORLD PREMIERES
We show films that are garnering different levels of exposure—
films that will only be seen at Rooftop, films that will play in limited
release, and films that will be independent hits. For unknown
films, we provide an enthusiastic audience and a platform to
launch a successful run, such as for the world premieres of two
indie comedies, Zachary Raines’ Freeloader and Joshua Gross’
World’s Best Dad.
SNEAK PREVIEWS
For films about to hit theaters, immediately drawing large
audiences is crucial to its survival in a crowded market, and by
doing a sneak preview at Rooftop, filmmakers generate buzz that
spurs box office sales. In celebration of the joint birthdays of
three local film trendsetters, Rooftop, Indiewire and Snag Films
co-presented a noteworthy screening of Even Glodell’s festival
hit Bellflower. And working in partnership with the tremendous
SXSW Film Festival, we hosted a weekend of NY premieres,
including Ian Cheney’s documentary The City Dark, a film
supported by the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund.
SHORT FILMS
Some of the most daring films in the world are shorts, and at
Rooftop we prize the short as a medium unto itself. Our thematic
programming displays multiple perspectives on a single topic, as
screenings of “New York Non-Fiction,” “Home Movies” and other
programs include the personal work Rooftop celebrates. Rooftop
also commissioned new works from respected alums: a series of
shorts about the solar system. The resulting program, Orbit(Film),
played festivals across the world and is available on DVD.
EMERGING FILMMAKERS SHOWCASE WITH IFP
Rooftop is proud to support emerging directors in many ways, and
for the fourth year we partnered with IFP to showcase a collection of
films from the 2011 Rough Cut Labs, programs connecting mentors
and projects before they are submitted to festivals. The screening
is a chance for filmmakers to start building awareness about their
movies, while our audience meets emerging directors and sees new
films before they become hot projects. We also hosted screenings of
another IFP alum: a sneak preview of Alrick Brown’s award-winning
film Kinyarawanda.
SPECIAL EVENTS
In order to garner exposure for unseen foreign films, we worked
with the Swedish Film Institute to bring filmmakers to New York,
including a live guerilla drumming performance by the stars of The
Sound of Noise. At a special presentation of Jarred Alterman’s
documentary Convento, the film’s subject set up a building-wide
installation of his robotic animal sculptures. And at the screening
of Robert Greene’s amateur wrestling documentary Fake It So
Real, the film director and Rooftop’s founder mixed it up in a full
size wrestling ring!
SCREENINGS OUTSIDE NEW YORK
As part of Rooftop’s ongoing expansion, we presented screenings
in four other locales. We began our summer with shows on a roof
in downtown Toronto at the world-renowned Hot Docs festival,
co-hosted six screenings outdoors in Philadelphia, and wrapped
up the season with a lovely show at the Camden Film Festival
in Maine. In November, we made it all the way out to Los Angeles
for the local premiere of Conrad Jackson’s LA love story Falling
Overnight.
CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS
At Rooftop, we believe that the artistic community is strengthened
by collaboration. In an effort to provide direct support to artists,
we joined forces with Kickstarter.com, a new forum for funding
creative projects, hosting a sold-out display of Kickstarter
projects, including films, farms, and fashion. We also partnered
with the intellectual video game magazine Kill Screen for a night
dedicated to these interactive motion pictures, and set up a
courtyard full of independently-produced games for a delighted
audience.
Rooftop’s elite task force of cinephiles sets up a professional
screening and knows how to throw a party right. I can’t think of
anything more that Rooftop could’ve done to promote our film
short of a Super Bowl commercial. Some of us are still deciding
where to place the Rooftop tattoo.
– Joshua Gross (World’s Best Dad)
Stills, left hand page, left to right: Fake It So Real, Convento; right hand page, left to right: Las Palmas, Heartpocalypse.
Other photos, © Irwin Seow.
MORE THAN A FILM FESTIVAL
FILMMAKERS’ FUND
Rooftop earmarks $1 from every ticket sold and every submission
fee received for filmmaker grants, an innovative approach using
community support to produce dynamic films. In 2011, we gave
away over $11,000 in grants to fund new productions by Rooftop
alums Lucy Walker, Zachary Volker, Anna Farrell and Todd
Chandler, plus a special grant made with the Adrienne Shelly
Foundation to Sarah Daggar-Nickson. We partnered with Eastern
Effects, a Brooklyn-based film equipment company, to loan Gillien
Robespierre a package of lighting and grip equipment for 30
days for her new film Obvious Child. Working with Edgeworx, a
local post-production house, we granted a full suite of finishing
services to David Lowery for his new film Ain’t Them Bodies
Saints. Meanwhile, previous Fund recipients achieved widespread
successes, such as 12 million YouTube views for Johannes
Nyholm’s Las Palmas, and a hot theatrical run for Sean Durkin’s
Martha Marcy May Marlene.
VENUE COLLABORATIONS
At Rooftop, we don’t screen in theaters, we screen in communities.
With screenings throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and
the Bronx, we establish collaborative partnerships with venues to
bring relevant films to local residents. On the roof of The Brooklyn
Grange, a massive urban farm, we hosted a night of rural-themed
films. Atop The Old American Can Factory, a former industrial
complex now converted into a haven for artists and manufacturers,
we curated screenings about the way changes technology affect
individuals. Other venues include Socrates Sculpture Park, Solar
One, The High Line, Chashama and more.
WORKING WITH YOUTH
Rooftop Films is committed to supporting the next generation
of filmmakers, and we work closely with three New York public
schools to bring filmmaking to students. In partnership with
The Fledgling Fund, Rooftop hosted multiple free screenings in
underserved neighborhoods throughout the city of To Be Heard,
a documentary about three inner city teens who become friends
and find their voices through a writing program. At each screening,
Rooftop organized a youth writing workshop. We then took the film
and teaching program to our three partner schools: Automotive
High School, New Design High School, and Brooklyn Tech.
EQUIPMENT RENTALS
In an effort to support truly independent screenings, Rooftop
makes all our film/video exhibition equipment available for lowcost
rentals. Projectors, sound systems, screens and more are
available, including our 40-foot wide inflatable airscreen, sure to
impress giant crowds.
MUSIC
There’s live music at every Rooftop show, as the venues, films,
filmmakers, audience and music work in concert to create
a holistic event. Indie songwriting superstar Jose Gonzalez
performed live before a documentary about his creative process,
two film composers performed before their respective movies,
and we booked bands from Sierra Leone, Sweden and Japan to
perform with films from those countries. We also presented such
hot new acts as Dustin Wong, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Janka
Nabay, Widowspeak and Silver Swans and more.