Entries tagged with “Music Video” from Rooftop Films Blog

New York Underground Film Festival
April 2-8, 2008
@ Anthology Film Archives
www.nyuff.com
Tickets

March 27 @ 9:45pm
Selections from the 2007 NYUFF
@ IFC Center
Tickets



The New York Underground Film Festival, a venerable anti-establishmentarian institution, the godfather of all "Underground" film festivals, will be hosting its 15th and Final installation in April, and then doing what any good punk rocker should do: dying young and . . . re-establishing itself as year-round programming consortium called "Migrating Forms."

The NYUFF has always been a haven for strange and beautiful, shocking and revealing avant garde cinema, and is definitely a big inspiration for Rooftop. I'll certainly be out for many screenings, including films by the following Rooftop alums: Jim Finn, Jacqueline Goss, Patrick Jolley, Jeanne Liotta, Jennifer Matotek, Seth Price, Robert Todd, Keith Wilson, Bryan Boyce, Lyn Elliot, Kent Lambert, Darrin Martin, Eileen Maxson, Kelly Oliver, Keary Rosen, Shelly Silver, Jim Trainor, Cory Arcangel, Skizz Cyzyk, Joe Nanashe, Moira Tierney, and Aaron Valdez (film pictured).

Check back here to the Rooftop Films blog for some write-ups and reviews of films, and I hope to see you there!

One of the most beautiful shows Rooftop Films ever hosted was our 2007 edition of Dark 'Toons. The astonishing animator Brent Green showed his films and played live music with Brooklyn locals The Quavers. They are a band whose sound and focus is very much in line with Rooftop--quiet and surprisingly intricate songs about drifting through specific landscapes. I'm a huge fan, and hope to have them back on the roof again.

Vincent Moon on Blogotheque's "Take Away Shows" created a wonderful video with the Quavers playing two songs while floating down the Gowanus Canal (just one block away from Rooftop headquarters). I think it's a fantastic and perfectly executed idea (having Brooklyn indie film legend Jem Cohen piloting the boat adds to the mystique). Watch the video (below) and read the exciting story here.

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THE QUAVERS - Sea Won't Take Long
by lablogotheque

Props to Rooftop's Managing Director Genevieve DeLaurier for digging up this video.

This seems like a good Leap Day Post, a dangerously funny "translation" of a Bollywood musical. "My loony bun is fine, Benny Lava."



"Have you been high today?"

In 11 years, Rooftop has now shown over 1,400 films. Casimir Nozkowski has shown about a dozen, more films than anyone else (or at least the 2nd most; Steve Collins has also shown about that many--statistics from the early days are a little hazy. Historians are arguing over original program note documents now stored at the National Archives.)

One of the reasons Cas is so successful is because he can make a smart, sweet, savvy film with very few resources. His work typifies the Rooftop attitude: a good idea, a simple execution, a unique movie.

His most recent work is a potential New York Non-Fiction candidate, a subtle and fun anthropomorphizing of some bottles on the subway. I'd love to hear what people's thoughts are on this, because I found it alternating touching, inspiring, funny and melancholy.



The song in it is "The Dance Went On Too Long" by The Chief Smiles. Cas writes, "This was not sanctioned by the MTA. Or Snapple. Or many strangers on the subways."

Rooftop Films Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg (referring to himself here in the 3rd person so as to avoid any hyperbole, positive or negative) recently wrote and directed a music video for the sinister love song "Can't Let Me Go" by the gravel-voiced Brian Grosz, the first track of his album "Bedlam Nights."

I'll try to get a nicer looking copy online somewhere to highlight the enticingly grungy video FX created by Josh Pelzek of Ballooned Eye, and the crisp photography by Sam Cullman (What Would Jesus Buy; King Corn), but for now YouTube will have to do. The clip was produced by Jessica Wolfson (Crazy Sexy Cancer; The Bridge; This Film is Not Yet Rated) and features Shonda Robbins (the upcoming Natural Causes).

We shot on a blustery day and a half in Brooklyn.

Rooftop Films is truly blessed to work in the The Old American Can Factory (an amazing six-building complex of artists and artisinal manufacturers), surrounded as we are by so many brilliant people. Our friend and neighbor Martin Bisi runs a legendary recording studio in one building, a studio he co-founded with Brian Eno and Bill Laswell. Sonic Youth, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn, Unsane (a personal favorite, back in my angrier days), on up through Serena Maneesh and the Dresden Dolls have all recorded there. That's some heady, heavy music history laying just below the roof you've all stood on.

But no one ever said Martin didn't have a sense of humor too. This hilarious and clever music video fits perfectly with this charmingly bizarre song.



Now you'll know what's going on the next time you come to a show and hear insane sounds floating up from the basement.