Rooftop Films is proud to announce the Opening Weekend and select highlights for the 17th Annual Summer Series presented by AT&T, featuring over 45 outdoor screenings with huge crowds, live music, spectacular venues and the best in new, independent, and foreign films. This year’s edition kicks off with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world on Friday, May 10th at Open Road Rooftop at New Design High School in the Lower East Side. On Saturday, May 11th, we will present a special sneak preview screening of “Frances Ha,” directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Greta Gerwig, also at Open Road Rooftop. Baumbach and Gerwig will be in attendance for a Q&A.
It is Rooftop’s goal with each event and each season to re-imagine their festival and reinvigorate their diverse community. With live performances, audience interaction, and enhanced themed events at amazing new venues, Rooftop will make each event unique and memorable.
“We realize that filmmakers and audiences want more than just a movie screening,” says Rooftop’s Founder and Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg. “We’re going to astound people with this year’s lineup of events, running the gamut from wild and daring to thoughtful and inspiring, with a whole lot of fun throughout. We’re building something new at Rooftop this year.”
Some highlights from this year’s Summer Series include New York premieres, sneak previews, and more:
Rooftop will host a sneak preview screening of “Crystal Fairy,” starring Michael Cera and Gaby Hoffmann, directed by Sebastián Silva (“Old Cats,” “The Maid”), winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s award for Best Director Award in World Cinema. The director and cast members will be in attendance.
On Saturday, July 13th, the documentary “Brasslands” will be presented with Arts Brookfield as part of the River To River Festival 2013 on the waterfront of Brookfield Place (formerly World Financial Center), with live performances by four Balkan brass bands, recreating the experience of the massive Serbian music festival that the film documents.
On Saturday, May 25th, Jordan Vogt-Roberts returns to Rooftop with his hilarious feature film debut, “The Kings of Summer” (formerly “Toy’s House”), starring Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.
Continuing their partnership, Rooftop and BAMcinématek will host a party with a sneak preview of “Drinking Buddies,” directed by Rooftop alum Joe Swanberg and starring Anna Kendrick and Olivia Wilde, on Thursday, June 27th, outdoors across the street from BAM. The filmmaker will be in attendance for the event.
Rooftop is on the cutting edge of supporting filmmakers in ways unlike any other festival, including via the ever-expanding Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund, which uses community-generated funds and creative partnerships to assist emerging directors. Audiences will get to see work by filmmakers that they have helped support since the start of their careers. Rooftop will be screening many works by grantees in 2013, including two films that premiered at Sundance: the hit western “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” directed by David Lowery, and “Newlyweeds,” a stoner romantic comedy directed by Shaka King.
“The films that we will be screening at Rooftop this year are more dynamic than ever before,” says Rooftop’s Program Director, Dan Nuxoll. “These movies explode off the screen with tremendous energy, and we thought it was important to feed off that energy and present each of them in a manner that amplifies their impact. With novel new venues, innovative modes of exhibition, exciting new partners and live entertainment that is perfectly matched to the films, this year’s Summer Series builds on the ideas that we have been developing for 17 years and takes our organization to another level.”
For the last two years, AT&T has been the proud presenting sponsor of the Rooftop Films Summer Series and the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund AT&T Feature Film Grant, helping Rooftop to expand their exhibition of great independent films, fund and support the work of up-and-coming filmmakers, and bring communities together via immersive cinema events staged in spectacular outdoor venues.
Dates and full feature line-up will be announced in the next week.
Rooftop Films 17th Annual Summer Series Opening Weekend
Friday, May 10, 2013
This is What We Mean by Short Films
Opening Night of Rooftop Films 17th Annual Summer Series will feature grand stories in little packages, with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world. Shorts will be announced soon.
Venue: Open Road Rooftop (350 Grand Street, LES)
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Frances Ha (Dir. Noah Baumbach)
Frances wants so much more than she has, but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. “Frances Ha” is a modern comic fable in which Noah Baumbach explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption. Courtesy of IFC Films.
Venue: Open Road Rooftop (350 Grand Street, LES)
Rooftop Films 17th Annual Summer Series Highlights
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (Dir. David Lowery)
“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” tells the tale of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas hills to reunite with his wife and the daughter he has never met.
Courtesy of IFC Films.
Brasslands (Dir. Meerkat Media Collective)
Presented by Rooftop Films and Arts Brookfield
Devoted American musicians, Serbian brass heavyweights, and a Gypsy trumpet master collide at the world’s largest trumpet festival.
Crystal Fairy (Dir. Sebastián Silva)
A hilariously unpredictable comedy about a self-involved young American searching for a secret hallucinogenic cactus in the desert of Chile.
Courtesy of IFC Films.
Drinking Buddies (Dir. Joe Swanberg)
Presented by Rooftop Films and BAMcinématek.
Luke and Kate are co-workers at a Chicago brewery where they spend their days drinking and flirting. They’re perfect for each other, except that they’re both in relationships. But you know what makes the line between “friends” and “more than friends” really blurry? Beer.
Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Newlyweeds (Dir. Shaka King)
Brooklyn residents Lyle and Nina blaze away the stress of living in New York City, but what should be a match made in stoner heaven turns into a love triangle gone awry.
Courtesy of Phase 4 Films.
The Kings of Summer (Dir. John Vogt-Roberts)
A unique coming-of-age comedy about three teenage friends who, in the ultimate act of independence, decide to spend their summer building a house in the woods and living off the land.
Courtesy of CBS.