Entries tagged with “Community Activism” from Rooftop Films Blog

Rooftop Films
& Court 13 present
"Glory at Sea!"
As a fundraiser for injured director Benh Zeitlin

Sat., April 26, 10:30pm
Walter Reade Theater
at Lincoln Center, NYC

SOLD OUT!
We raised over $5,000!

"Glory at Sea!" will be screening at Rooftop Films' 2008 Summer Series on June 12. So if you haven't already, join our email list (left) to receive updates about the schedule.

Tremendous thanks to everyone who bought tickets!



If you can't make it to the screening, you can still support the cause by going to www.court13.com and clicking DONATE.

* * *

In 2005, the Rooftop Filmmakers' Fund awarded a grant to Benh Zeitlin and Court 13 Pictures for their 25-minute film "Glory at Sea," an inspiring and astonishing epic re-telling of the Orpheus myth, set in post-Katrina New Orleans. You can read about the film here.

Unfortunately, while on the way to the premiere of the film at SXSW, a driver (without car insurance) rear-ended the vehicle Benh was in, putting Benh in bed for the next several months with a dislocated hip, a shattered pelvis and two sprained ankles.

Not having health insurance at the time of the accident, Benh and the future of Court 13 are in dire financial trouble, and we are reaching out to the community for financial support. All proceeds from this fundraiser will go toward the arduous and expensive process of getting Benh walking, and soon charging toward making another epic down in New Orleans, this time a feature film.

On Saturday, April 26, we will host the New York Premiere of this amazing film, and also screen the world premiere of Benh's adorable short film, "I Get Wet." Tickets are pay what you can at a set, sliding scale (there's no difference in seating or other options, you just choose to donate more or less). If you would like to make a larger donation, or if you can't make it, but would like to donate, please visit www.court13.com and click DONATE.

If you want to support the cause but do NOT plan to attend, please do NOT buy a ticket. Make a donation through the link above so we can save that seat for someone who can come.

"GLORY AT SEA" Fundraiser
Saturday, April 26, 10:30pm
at The Walter Reade Theater
at Lincoln Center
North side of West 65th St.,
btwn. Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues, one flight up on the upper level.
Buy Tickets -- SOLD OUT!

And don't just take our word for it that the film is amazing. It won the Wholphin Award for best short film at SXSW, and the following people have all written glowingly about it:

+ Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail & IndieWire
+ Spencer Parsons at Austin Chronicle
+ David Lowery at Spout Blog

Come see an amazing film, and help an artist in need!

Last night I attended the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors, co-chaired by AJ Schnack and Thom Powers, produced by Danielle DiGiacomo, and presented by IndiePix at the IFC Center. I have never been a big fan of awards for art. I'm a big sports fan, and a competitive person, but I don't judge success in anything based on being first, or on winning an award (or an Honor, or whatever you want to call it.)

I play on an amateur baseball team, and I want to win. But if winning were the only goal, I would've long since stopped playing, knowing that I'll never win the ultimate prize, a Major League World Series. I root for the Mets because, at least in my idealized conception of the team, the organization doesn't consider every season a failure if they don't win the championship. There are great playoff streaks, memorable games, astonishing plays, and touching personal stories, even in a losing season. (My Mets fandom could be its own blog, so I'll wrap this up by saying,) I appreciate sports in a manner more like the way many people appreciate art: I enjoy the aesthetics, the excitement, the emotion, and the narrative, and the end result is equally powerful whether it makes me happy or sad, so long as I am moved.

So the idea of awards for art seems to me somehow antithetical to the point of art; an award is an artificial high which doesn't stem from the work itself, but instead is bestowed upon the film in relation to other films. I had usually passed on the opportunity to vote in awards, even declining to submit a ballot for audience choice awards at festivals.

That said, when Sundance asked me to be on the jury in 2007, it took about half a second for me to say yes. So I had to ask myself if I was being a hypocrite. And in the end I came to the conclusion that has been arrived at by most thoughtful people who are in favor of awards for art: by giving awards to certain deserving works, you raise the level of attention for the form. As Thom Powers wrote in his introduction to the Cinema Eye Honors, "We don't expect you to agree with all our choices. Rather we hope this will be an occasion for increased debate and discussion." When I agreed to be on the jury at Sundance, I figured I could help out the types of groundbreaking, personal cinema that I think deserves more attention that it gets, even coming out of Sundance. And, of course, I was excited at the possibility of representing Rooftop Films, and raising the profile for the work that all of our programmers past and present (Joshua Breitbart, Moira Griffin, Dan Nuxoll, Sarah Palmer, Genevieve DeLaurier) believe in, fight for, want to see more of, and want to share.

Before and at the Cinema Eye Honors, there was some grumbling about the eligibility criteria, which (in short) limit the possible nominees to films that have played at major festivals, won awards at major festivals, or been seen by a certain number of people in theaters. There's a sense that these are the films that have already garnered some acclaim and audiences, even to the point of reaching wide national release and Academy Award recognition. I understand the feeling, because in a room full of avid festival watchers, these are the films we've heard about over and over.

But let's keep in mind the broader picture of audience awareness. By my estimation, via Box Office Mojo, no film nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking (the equivalent of Best Picture), was seen by more than 150,000 people--less than the number of people living within three square miles of the IFC Center. Tony Kaye's abortion documentary "Lake of Fire" was perhaps seen by 3,000 people--about as many people as saw "Juno" on any given screen on any given day in the first week of its 104 day, 2,534 theater release. Correct me if my numbers are wrong (I'll admit I'm not an expert at box office stats), but outside the independent film community, these films have not been widely seen or recognized.

So these awards are certainly needed, and it's impressive what the Cinema Eye team has accomplished in such a short time. If they have the energy to do it again--and I hope they do--I think in order to gain wider relevance to the mainstream public, while also entertaining and informing Cinema Eye's core audience of indie film professionals, there are a couple of ways they might work to expand.

IndiePix and IFC have done a commendable job in supporting these awards, but jointly the Cinema Eye group could actively work to get a wider release for the films. The trick here would be getting distributors to believe that the Cinema Eye Honor would help a theatrical run. That's no mean feat, but I think it's a necessary and worthy goal in order to keep the awards from devolving into hermetic self-congratulation.

As for keeping this hermetic community happy, I think the eligibility should be expanded to include at least one category for the best film that didn't play at multiple fests, didn't win awards, and didn't get a theatrical release--essentially just reverse all the eligibility requirements for what they could call the Underexposed Award. It's more work for the nominators, but by finding the films that not even most industry insiders have seen, the Cinema Eye Honors could launch awareness for a truly marginalized film.

As an awards ceremony itself, the event was slick but homey, weighty when it needed to be but generally lighthearted, informative but not ponderous. I particularly loved the mid-ceremony discussion group, which featured the fierce insights of Esther B. Robinson and the goofy dynamism of Jason Kohn. Still, the structure and format felt like just about every other awards ceremony, which is a disappointment for an event that is celebrating narrative craft. Of course, coming from Rooftop Films--where for 12 years we've been trying to stage new ways of presenting films--I would level such a criticism, but I think if the Cinema Eye Honors want to want to break some boundaries and maintain this level of interest in the event itself, in the coming years they would do well to try to stretch the format of their show, much they way the artists they are honoring are challenging the formats of non-fiction filmmaking.

I think when the dance floor clears at the after-party and the dust settles back onto Thom's tux, the Cinema Eye Honors will have succeeded in generating some more attention for some artful and deserving documentaries. I hope that some of the more mainstream press picks up on the awards and brings the spirit of the event, and the films themselves, to a wider audience.

At Rooftop Films, I think we'll proudly stick to a non-competitive model, instead giving away grants for filmmakers' future productions. But I'm glad that the Cinema Eye Awards exist, and send a huge congratulations to AJ, Thom, Danielle, all the nominators and voters, and of course to all the filmmakers who have made these wonderful films, so deserving of attention.

* * * * *

For a rundown of the event, visit IndieWire. Here is their complete list of Cinema Eye winners:

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"
Director - Jason Kohn, Producers - Joey Frank, Jared Goldman & Jason Kohn

Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Alex Gibney
"Taxi to the Dark Side"

Outstanding Achievement in Production
Seth Kanegis, Tomas Radoor & Mikael Rieks
"Ghosts of Cite Soleil"

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Heloisa Passos
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"

Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Doug Abel, Jenny Golden & Andy Grieve
"Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)"

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Animation by Curious Pictures
"Chicago 10"

Outstanding International Feature
"The Monastery - Mr. Vig & The Nun" (above, middle)
Director - Pernille Rose Gronkjaer, Producer - Sigrid Dyekjaer

Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature
"Billy the Kid" (above, top)
Director - Jennifer Venditti

Audience Choice Prize
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (above, bottom)
Director - Seth Gordon

A quick update in the ongoing saga of Benh Zeitlin and "Glory at Sea!" You can read the backstory here, here, and here. Very nice posts were also written by The Austin Chronicle, Slamdance, and Spout.

As I wrote earlier, Benh was unable to make it to very much at the festival, because of his car accident. But he did make it to the final screening of his film, and told me "I started weeping about 10 minutes into the film and didn't really stop, barely managed to answer any questions afterwards so the crew came up and filled in for me. It was a real release, a great feeling of closure on all this insanity and trauma."

Benh is now back in New York, and would still love it if any SXSW filmmakers wanted to send DVDs of their films for him to see, because he wasn't able to make the rounds at the festival. Please address them to:

Benh Zeitlin
43 South Calumet
Hastings NY 10706

News about Benh's insurance needs and a possible benefit screening are still to come. Stay tuned here.

Like the film itself, this story has (in its own way) a happy ending. As you probably read in my other posts below, Benh Zeitlin--the director of "Glory at Sea," a miraculous short film that Rooftop co-funded--was in a brutal car accident the day of his first screening at SXSW. He's doing much better now, with his metal hip, painkillers, and tremendous set of friends and supporters. Contrary to a popular rumor, the infamous welder-turned-actor who plays Sergeant Major in the film, Jimmy Lee Moore, did NOT perform Benh's operation.

Although Benh wasn't able to attend the first two screenings of his film, he may actually be able to get to the Friday March 14 show at 2:30pm (so go join him if you can for what promises to be a very emotional screening). And so, laid up in a hospital bed, the festival has come to him.

Many filmmakers sent along copies of their films so Benh could watch them in his hospital bed (holding his laptop inches from his face as he awaits new eyeglasses to replace the ones lost in the car). Many more people cheered on the film and sent their well wishes. I know Benh would like to pass on his thanks to all of you.

And last night, "Glory at Sea" took home the SXSW Wolphin Award for Best Short Film.

Brent Hoff and Emily Doe from Wholphin, the excellent DVD magazine that is part of the beneficient McSweeney's empire, presented the award to "Glory" producers Josh Penn, Dan Janvey, and Par Parekh. Fittingly for such a funky, underwater film, and for a DVD zine named for a cross between a whale and a dolphin, the award itself was a pinky-sized vial containing a tiny squid, found some 6,000 feet beneath the sea by an official Wolphin oceanographer.

Immediately following the awards ceremony, I went with about 20 people to visit Benh and celebrate. He was moved and delighted and proud, and really loving the symbolism of this tiny dead creature pulled from the depths of the sea.

Facts about the accident, car insurance and medical bills are still sketchy, but plans for celebration / benefit screenings in Austin and New York are in the works.

A few days ago, I posted below about "Glory at Sea!" a short film directed by Benh Zeitlin of Court 13 Productions. It's a movie that Rooftop Films partially funded, and which is an amazing, uplifting, collaborative project, a mythical narrative about a community (set in post-Katrina New Orleans) coming together to build a raft to join their loved ones after a fatal flood.  

Please take a moment to read what I wrote when I attended the cast and crew screening in New Orleans last week:

www.rooftopfilms.com/blog/2008/03/bleeding-rust-glory-at-sea-in.html

On the way to his SXSW premiere, Benh's car was rear-ended at a stoplight. Benh has shattered his hip and broken his pelvis. Three other people in the car with him also had minor injuries. Benh was in surgery all day, and it appears that he will recover. I visited him in the hospital and his spirits are remarkably high, but he's facing a long, painful, expensive recovery process. And he could use your help.

There are a few things you could do, if you're a friend, a supporter, a SXSW filmmaker.

+ SEE THE FILM!
+ SIGN THE FILM GUESTBOOK
+ SEND A DVD OF YOUR FILM
+ DONATE TO HELP COVER HIS MEDICAL EXPENSES


SEE THE FILM
I was hyping this film long before Benh's accident, but now more than ever go see his truly inspiring and uplifting film. Michael Tully, who writes for IndieWire and Hammer to Nail, saw the film and said he wanted to stand up and shout hallelujah. You'll feel the same, and the rest of the cast and crew will really appreciate your support. "Glory at Sea!" screens:

Shorts Program 3
Tuesday, March 11, 12pm, Alamo Lamar 2
& Friday, March 14, 2:30pm, Alamo Lamar 2  

There are so many amazing, inspiring films here at SXSW, and this is such a supportive community, I have no doubt that the outpouring of kindness will be tremendous.  


SIGN THE GUESTBOOK
We'll have a guest book at the screening so that Benh can receive some of the feedback he'll be missing by not being there. Please take a moment to tell him your thoughts about the film.

If you already saw the film, or can't make a screening, you can also send an email to Benh at <benh AT court13 DOT com>.


SEND YOUR FILM
One of the unfortunate results of this accident is that Benh, who has made such a beautifully collaborative project, is sadly missing the festival experience here at SXSW. (The SXSW staff has been very supportive, but of course there's nothing to be done to get him out of the hospital right now.) He would love to see films and meet people. On top of that, he's going to be laid up in a hospital bed with no entertainment for some time.

We're asking that SXSW filmmakers please donate a DVD of your film to Benh.

We understand of course that some of you may not be comfortable having DVDs of your film floating around at this time, so if you can't lend a DVD, that's okay. But if you don't mind passing on a copy of the film to a trusted filmmaker, it would be a sweet gesture. You can drop off your film:

Convention Center
(near the screening room)
Tuesday, March 11, 4-6pm

I along with some of the crew from the film will be hanging out at at a table, so drop by and donate a DVD to Benh. (We'll try to set up a small sign. Otherwise look for me, a guy with a shaved head. And I'll wear a colorful tie.) Other forms of entertainment, support, get well cards, etc., are also welcome. If you can't come then, drop me a line at mark AT rooftopfilms DOT com and we'll try to arrange something else.


DONATE
Benh does not have health insurance and is facing tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost income while he's laid up. It may be that the car insurance will cover his expenses, but unfortunately, it's not clear if that's the case (issues surrounding the driver of the other vehicle are sketchy). I will keep you posted if and when financial support becomes necessary (and promise not to send a glut of emails). You can check www.rooftopfilms.com/blog and www.court13.com for updates.

I know that Rooftop, SXSW and others are also discussing benefit screenings, so stay tuned.  

Thank you all in advance for your support. I know that Court 13 and Rooftop Films and SXSW have a really strong community here and that we'll be able to support a filmmaker and a friend in need.

In a certain way, this entire review is a spoiler, so if you don't want to know too much, skip my writings and go see the film. Herein, I don't really tell you the plot--an exciting and gripping drama--but I do get at the essence of the film.  I highly recommend it.

In Daniel Stamm's "A Necessary Death," we see a young film student known for taking wild risks as a filmmaker wants to make a documentary about someone who plans to commit suicide. His friends think it's a crazy idea, and while some of them agree to help, his roommate decides to document the making of the documentary. They post an ad online, interview some suicidal candidates, and finally settle on a young man with a terminal brain tumor who wants to kill himself before he has to suffer. The nature of the filmmaking process, and a series of manipulations, romances, and discoveries, lead the film in a taut and tragic trajectory.

At the SXSW premiere, after the screening, the audience gasped at the sight of the supposedly dead actors. The director of the film asked for a show of hands as to how many people thought it was a documentary through to the end, and fully half the crowd raised their hands. But it's not a documentary. It's a brilliantly executed work of fiction.

At the Q & A, one woman walked out 2/3rds of the way through, but came back at the end to discuss the film. She had believed it was a documentary, and was too disturbed to watch, but raised the question about filmmaking and audience complicity in this "death." Even if it turns out to be a narrative, what does it say about our society if we want to watch something like this?

My first reaction to that is, how is it different from watching a film about a war, or about someone dying of a disease? Presumably, death in those circumstances is completely inevitable and out of the filmmakers' control. In the rare circumstances when a filmmaker has a chance to save a life, they probably usually do put down the camera. But it's never just that simple. For example, what if a filmmaker in a war knows that someone is injured, but continues to film something else rather than helping, because to help would mean to stop filming?

I believe that most of the filmmakers whose films play at Rooftop and SXSW and similar festivals truly do want to help their subjects and the causes they stand for. They want to tell the story so that audience members can engage with the issue. If they stop filming, the one person may be sacrificed, but the larger issue of the film will carry on, eventually (so the hope goes) saving many people.

That was my initial reaction--an idealistic and utilitarian one. But frankly it didn't sit right with me. It felt morally thin. Talking to my extremely kind-hearted girlfriend Stephanie Skaff and to filmmaker/Docs That Inspire-writer Joel Heller about the topic, they expressed what I think is the key to the issue: a filmmaker who genuinely cares about his subjects wouldn't allow themselves to simply watch, and not interfere in order to save a life or help an individual. Of course, in every situation, the filmmaker has to make careful distinctions and choices, but I think one can probably draw a close link between the lasting humanity of a given film and the ability of that filmmaker to make the "right" choice as to when to interfere and when to keep rolling.

That still leaves the complicated issue of suicide, and this non-documentary "A Necessary Death." Personally, I think if I was working on a documentary about a potential suicide, the goal of the film would be to work through the issue of suicide and to engage audience members in a dialogue which could eventually help people. So I would try to help the person work through their issues, see if there was a solution before death, assist them in making the best choice for themselves. And if suicide were still the choice, I'd be willing to roll the camera.

"A Necessary Death" I think succeeds in raising and addressing the issues of the role of the documentarian, the viewer, and all witnesses and friends. In the film, the tragedy is not the suicide, but the fact that clearly the friends and documentarian have not done enough to engage and help, letting a man kill himself when he was not in fact at peace with that choice.

At least that's my take on this very thought-provoking film. If you get a chance, check it out so we can talk more.

Carroll Pickett was a minister in Huntsville, TX--a place best known for its many prisons and high number of executions--when two of his parishioners were taken hostage in an infamous prison riot in 1974. He was called in to try to broker peace, but his friends were eventually killed, and Pickett vowed to never return to that prison.

But years later, the prison asked him to become the chaplain, and he thought he could do some valuable work for the people there. Indeed he did, until suddenly his job description changed, and he was asked to be the minister presiding over executions. He would spend all day with the condemned, getting to know them, listening to their fears, concerns and confessions, and aiding any of their last wishes. Pickett agreed in principal with the death penalty, but he certainly had trepidation about the burden of task.

Over 15 years, he was at 95 executions, each a fascinating story. And over those years, Pickett's opinion of the death penalty changed completely.

"At the Death House Door," directed by Steve James and Peter Glibert, is a gripping, fascinating, powerful film about Pickett, about a wrongly-executed man named Carlos De Luna and his family, and about the tragic moral mistake that is the death penalty. Pickett's character unfolds with a stately grace. Being a old-fashioned Texan, he's reluctant to reveal his emotions, a trait which only makes them burn with more ferocity as you see them shine through. In the Q & A, he was asked why it took him so long to come to the conclusions he did, he said that he's "just hard-headed." But in the film, you see an amazing evolution of a man's feelings and ideology, a rare and stunning transformation to see in a documentary, or really in life in general (aren't we all pretty stubborn in our beliefs?)

After every execution, Pickett recorded an audio diary of what happened and what he was thinking and feeling. Until the documentary, not even his family knew these tapes existed, and watching Picket re-listening to them in the film is one of the most harrowing looks into man's soul that I've ever seen.

Finally, the execution of Hector De Luna, a man who Pickett suspected was innocent, is enough to set the ball in motion for Pickett to leave the prison and become an anti-death penalty activist. Emotionally, Pickett was verging on destruction. But he harnesses these core moral disturbances and uses them (and an array of factual evidence) to fight against the death penalty. He actively campaigns now, arguing that not only is the death penalty cruel and painful, not only are there irremediable mistakes made, not is the penalty ineffective as a criminal deterrent (there are hundreds more people on death row now than there were when it was reinstated 30 years ago), but it's a fundamentally immoral act, that's "not Christian, it's not American, and it's not Texan," a moral blight on our society which makes us weaker as a people.

In the Q & A, someone wondered if they film might be more effective if it also focused on some of the victims, and the filmmakers' rightly pointed out that in many ways this is a film about victims. It's one side of the death penalty story, surely, but one that crucially implicates all Americans in continuing to allow this injustice.

"I'm angry," says Rose De Luna, the sister of the wrongly-executed Hector De Luna. "Stay that way," Pickett says.

We all need to get angry.

If you don't get a chance to see it at SXSW, the film will be on IFC in May, and perhaps at Rooftop some time soon. I would love the honor to show this to people, and sure wish that a few of them might be on the Supreme Court.

I almost never agree with the Academy Awards, but 3 of the 4 nominees for Best Documentary Short Film played at Rooftop Films in 2007--Freeheld (Directed by Cynthia Wade), Salim Baba (Tim Sternberg) and Sari's Mother (James Longley)--so you know I agreed with those choices.  

I'm thrilled that Brooklyn native Cynthia Wade (below, right) was given the award for her stunning and  powerful film about NJ Police Lieutenant Laurel Hester's (above, right) struggle to have her pension passed on to her domestic partner as Hester was dying of cancer. Hester's strength helped changed this discriminatory policy, and we hope that Wade's film can continue to inspire tolerance and equality.

Third Ward, TX
a documentary about art, life and real estate
Directed by Andrew Garrison
Produced by Nancy Bless & Noland Walker
Friday, Feb 1, 6:30pm
@ Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place, NYC
RSVP: www.aiany.com/calendar
FREE

Project Row Houses is the unlikely home of cutting-edge art and visionary thinking about inner-city renewal. Third Ward, TX introduces artists and neighbors who are breathing new life into their historically black community in Houston. But art, life and real estate collide when deep-pocketed developers arrive. Project Row Houses' unexpected response offers new, creative solutions.

In 2007, Rooftop Films was proud to screen Third Ward, TX as part of our INDUSTRIANCE series -- films about the changing landscape in industry, architecture, agriculture, and about the way individual lives are affected by these shifts. This film is everything we're looking to say in that series: it's a great story, told with charm and dexterity, and really has universal appeal, addressing are issues facing every city in America, including Brooklyn. Our country needs more innovative ideas like Project Row Houses. A first step is for people to see Third Ward, TX, so if you missed it on the roof, go check it out this week.

"Made in America" is a radical film about the history of African-Americans in the infamous neighborhood of South Central, Los Angeles. The film outlines the early migrations of former slaves to Los Angeles, and discusses the post-WWII boom of skilled industrial careers which brought large numbers of blacks to LA for the first time. But by the mid-1960s, industry was leaving the city, and African-Americans were losing their jobs. Young men, with little hopes of finding beneficial careers, and even barred from the Boy Scouts, began to form street gangs, looking for social and physical support. These were fighting gangs, but of a somewhat more tame nature than we know now: "You used to make an appointment for an ass-whupping," says one former gang member. "I'd beat your hairline back and knock your sideburns off."

[All quotations are paraphrased to the best of my abilities in dark-theater note-taking and memorization.]

Unwilling to accept the implicit racism and segregation in the city which their ancestors had put up with in the South, in 1967 thousands of angry blacks finally fought back in the infamous Watts riots. In the years since, many people have disparaged the riots for the looting which occurred within black neighborhoods. But one man who participated in the riots defiantly pointed out, "The looting didn't undermine anything, because we're talking about desperate people here." Hemmed in by thousands of national guardsmen during the riots, and by the racist police during the rest of their lives, given the generations of brutal oppression and total lack of economic salvation, when you hear the people tell their stories in this film, you can understand why they might loot anything from food for their children to a new color TV.

The years following the riots showed an upswing of social and political activism and a decrease in gang activity. But by the end of the 1970s, with the government reneging on promises to help and little having been accomplished, white LA hemmed South Central in even more, allowing an influx of drugs and crime. The main element of the government's "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime" is the constant harassment of African-Americans--essentially waging a war on blacks. South Central has dived deeper into despair than ever before. In the last 30 years, brutal gangs have ruled the streets. In the last 10 years alone, there have been 15,000 gang-related deaths in Los Angeles, more than in the entire history of the civil war in Northern Ireland.

Most of the people in South Central are, of course, desperate to stop the violence. Social groups are springing up--without much support from outside the community--which work to convince young black men not to join gangs, and to try to find alternatives for them, from after-school activities, to lasting careers. But without major changes to the socio-economic system in Los Angeles, the cycle is bound to renew itself.

I said that this is a radical film, and it is. But the filmmaking is not what's radical here. The fast editing and effects, the constant use of music, may in fact put many people off. And frankly, the history being told is also not radical territory: many movies, books, articles have discussed the treatment of African-Americans which has lead to such widespread alienation, depression, rage, and violence. Other truly excellent films here at Sundance, even, such as "The Order of Myths," deal in some part with these issues.

No, what is radical here is who is telling this story, and how they are saying it. The power and significance of hearing this story from the mouths of angry black men cannot be discounted. When 1 in 4 African-American males is expected to go to jail at some point in their lives, a film like this cannot be dismissed just because it seems overly flashy, or because we think we've heard it before. "What right have you got," says one former gang member in the film, speaking of the daily police stops he faced, "to ask me where I'm going, what I'm doing? It's none of your damn business. But every day I'm fed this spoonful of hatred. It's my daily diet. And I'm gonna erupt. The question is when."

If we simply say to ourselves that we've heard about the problem--and don't acknowledge the deep-seated, widespread, and justified anger represented in " Made in America"--that eruption will come again soon.  

Watch the trailer! Then buy the DVD!

At Rooftop, our events are more than just screenings: they're interactions between the film, the filmmakers, the audience, the venue, and the local community. In 2006, when we screened Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's documentary "Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea," a film about the man-made ecological disaster turned weirdo-haven, the screening was held on the roof of the Old American Can Factory, a former industrial complex turned artists-haven, located just a few blocks from the direly polluted Gowanus Canal.

The wildly entertaining and sneakily informative film was the starting point for a lively conversation between the filmmakers and audience, in which we wondered if environmental disasters weren't sometimes good for a community. Certainly, as the film shows, for the eccentric people who live near the Salton Sea, the fact that this once glorious resort town is now essentially in ruins allows them to live cheaply and happily while waving to tourists in the nude, building a colorful concrete prayer mountain, and doing all sorts of bizarre and wonderful things they couldn't do elsewhere, say, in the wealthy nearby city of Palm Springs. (Visit plaguesandpleasures.com and click on people to read more about the above-mentioned kooky characters.) Similarly, the 200 artists who call the OA Can Factory home (including Rooftop Films) couldn't carry on our work if the canal was cleaned and the industrial buildings replaced with luxury condos.

Of course, we wouldn't advocate for the toxic pollution of all waterways, but "Plagues and Pleasures," Rooftop Films, and our INDUSTRIANCETM screening series (co-presented with XO Projects Inc.) all point to the importance of considering the local inhabitants when advocating environmental cleanup. We all want healthy people and a sustainable planet, but when you "improve" a neighborhood, what happens to the people who were there when it was "deteriorated"?

It's great to see that long since completing "Plagues and Pleasures," and while hard at work on a documentary about Fishbone, Chris and Jeff are still involved with the Salton Sea community. Their latest newsletter mentions that Congress just overrode a presidential veto of an environmental study, which should be good news. On the sad side, a number of people in the film have since passed away.

If you haven't already seen "Plagues and Pleasures," the filmmakers are still touring it around the world so look on their site for a screening in your area. The film is also for sale in a new tricked-out DVD edition (along with a variety of other curious Salton Sea tchotchkees).