Rooftop Films was founded in 1997 by filmmakers who were interested in
making, watching, and talking about good films, in a relaxed, communal
environment. Sponsored by Fractured Atlas, we are a volunteer-run
non-profit corporation which promotes low-budget filmmaking in New York
City by lending equipment and services, connecting people with
projects, and hosting a short film series throughout the summer.
The summer film series serves as the central organizing element for our
other work, and it provides an audience for short, low-budget movies
which might otherwise go unseen. We especially concentrate on short
works, because shorts are not merely abbreviated features, shorts are
their own expressive medium. A poem does not aspire to the ideals of a
novel; a short should not aspire to be a feature. The best shorts,
though often made from desperation, are not desperate to be something
else. Small finances, quick shooting schedules, limited equipment
resources -- these "restrictions" are what make the best short films so
intense. In a short film, a film stripped to its essence, the
filmmaker's passion is laid bare.
Often the most exciting work comes from artists working outside the
feature-film industry. Many of the movies we show are made by people
who don't even consider themselves filmmakers. We want to reach
artists who simply have something to say and will do anything to have
it made and seen, in the medium of film. We present films in logical
combinations but from varied sources, which brings in people from
communities that may not otherwise overlap. And the venue -- the roof
of a loft building in the East Williamsburg Industrial Park -- attracts
viewers interested in issues of community as well as those interested
in film. We reach our artists and our audience through grassroots
promotion: postcards, flyers, stickers, and word of mouth. In 2000, we
screened 46 films from around the country and world, and over 1,000
people attended our eight Friday night screenings. In 2001 we
expanded to 12 nights and showed 85 films to some 1500 folks.
On October 5, Rooftop films hosted "9.11 -- Present," a special benefit
show. Just three weeks after the attacks, we were able to show a
variety of films pertaining to recent events. We showed films made
before the attacks about relative issues -- such as an early-2001 film
about women's rights under the Taliban, and a film shot in Iraq during
the Gulf War -- as well as films made since the attacks -- including
critiques of the mainstream media coverage of the events, a film shot
at Ground Zero as the buildings came down, and an animated reflection
about the 11th. The Rooftop Films production collective produced a
film about police relations in our neighborhood before and after Sept.
11th. The collective also partially funded Other Dislocations, a film
by San Francisco filmmaker Jesse Malings, about Arab-American race
relations and student protests. The 300 people in attendence were able
to see some ideas, opinions and facts not necessarily presented
elsewhere. And we also raised $1200 for charity (for The Tepeyac
Association and for the Feminist Majority's Afghani Women's Project).
Now we are preparing video tape compilations of the films, which we
plan to distribute in the Spring.
Rooftop Films also recently completed a successful West Coast Tour
which included screenings in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. And
in 2002, Rooftop Films will expand the Summer Series even further,
hosting 14 nights of programming.
Rooftop Films has produced or co-produced five short films, including:
Mark Elijah Rosenberg's "The Man who Shouted Teresa," Joshua
Breitbart's "Tickets," and "Road and Horn" -- a documentary about a
strike at a Brooklyn lumber yard -- made by the Friends of Teamsters
Local 1206. All the films were screened on the roof. To continue
making films, we now are developing a production collective, in which
Rooftop Films would maintain production equipment and provide a crew to
filmmakers working on their projects. This would alleviate the problem
which many independent filmmakers have of being overburdened with
administrative work, and of being short-handed on the crew, as they try
to make their films. The key to the collective model is that in
exchange for the services Rooftop Films provides, a filmmaker would
agree to work on other Rooftop Films projects.
With our Filmmakers' Fund, we have set aside 1/6th of all proceeds for
the future projects of filmmakers who's work we show. Currently, there
are 10 new films being produced or co-produced with Rooftop Films
money, equipment and resources. In this way, we believe, local
filmmakers would be able to produce good films efficiently and cheaply,
and have a place to screen their work, all the while strengthening the
independent film community.
