STAFF

Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Founder & Artistic Director
Born and raised in New York City, Mark received his BA from Vassar College and began showing movies on his roof in 1997. Mark has overseen the growth of Rooftop Films into one of the most innovative film companies in the country.

Mark has published articles on filmmaking and programming, and been a guest lecturer at places such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Allied Media Conference and the University of Texas. Mark has served on grants panels for Cinereach, NYSCA, LMCC and Renew Media, and is on the Advisory Council for Fractured Atlas. Mark has programmed film screenings across the world, and was on the jury at numerous festivals including Sundance and SXSW.

As a curator and filmmaker in his own right, Mark's taste and work favor low-budget, personal cinema. Mark has shot, directed, and edited dozens of short films, and was a producer-editor on the Emmy Award-winning WNYE television show IMNY, where he taught video production to New York City public school students. Mark recently co-produced and directed a segment of Orbit(Film), an omnibus movie about our solar system, and is developing a feature-length multi-media story about a man on a one-way mission toward the unknown. The film, Ad Inexplorata, was recently selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and Mark has been awarded a grant from Creative Capital. 

Mark is an outfielder for the New York Giants amateur baseball team, a receiver on the nationally-traveling NYGFL flag football team, the proud father of a dog named Rizzo, and the husband of Stephanie Skaff, a musician and media activist.

Dan Nuxoll, Program Director
Dan grew up in Queens and attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, later moving on to Vassar College. Following his return to New York in 1997, Dan co-founded the legendary Peter's Car Corp. on the top floor of the McKibbin Street Lofts in Bushwick. PCC soon became the home of Rooftop Films and for the next 5 years Dan helped to bring hundreds of films to his roof in Brooklyn.

Dan took over as Program Director of Rooftop Films in 2002 and since then he has watched the film submissions rise to over 2,800 submissions a year. The programming for Rooftop Films has received increasing acclaim over the last years, and Dan has curated and organized events across North America and Europe.

Dan is also proud to have helped in Rooftop's search and acquisition of stunning new venues. Negotiating contracts with spaces like El Museo Del Barrio, the Westbeth Community, Historic Harlem Parks, New Design High School, and dozens of other partners, has allowed Rooftop Films to collaborate in revitalizing and invigorating spaces across New York and beyond. He has overseen negotiations with Rooftop's sponsors for the last several years and has used his experience in sound engineering to help promote Rooftop Films technical commitment with its burgeoning rentals arm. He has also served on juries for both Slamdance and SXSW, and developed partnerships with Hot Docs, SXSW, Camden International Film Festival, IFC, MoMA, Full Frame, MusisDoc Malmo, and many other organziations.

On the rare occasions that Dan has time outside of Rooftop, he works as a producer, composer and sound designer for films including the wildly entertaining feature documentary Kiss My Snake. He is currently working on a new documentary feature entitled Island of Destruction about a mysterious figure who may have been running ethically suspect film festivals for decades.

Genevieve Hsiao-Yung DeLaurier, Managing Director
In the summer of 2007 Genevieve joined Rooftop Films in the brand new position of Managing Director. Her responsibilities include staff management, marketing, public relations, finance and fundraising. Genevieve was raised in Ithaca, NY and attended SUNY Buffalo, graduating with a degree in American Studies and a minor in Dance. Prior to joining Rooftop Films, she spent over ten years in event and program development for a variety of nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. She has volunteered with numerous arts organizations including the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. In her free time, Genevieve actually enjoys watching C-SPAN and bakes delicious pastries.

Chantel Elassaad, Festival Coordinator
Hailing from the same Northern country as the amazingly talented Justin Beiber and Drake, Chantel has been working with Rooftop Films since 2008. She lives her life by the Wu-Tang Sword. In her spare time she enjoys doing what she does best: tanning, drinking Corona's, and hanging out with her totally hot husband.

Aaron Wistar, Tech Manager
Aaron grew up in Albany, NY and graduated from Bard College with a dual degree in Music and Philosophy. In his free time, he plays drums with singer Sam Buck Rosen. He's been working for Rooftop Films, rain or shine, since 2008.

Lela Scott MacNeil, Outreach and Development Manager
Growing up in Arizona, it was Lela's lifelong dream to live in New York City. To that end, she attended NYU's Tisch School, where she graduated with a dual degree in Screenwriting and Political Science.  Prior to joining Rooftop Films in May of 2010, she worked as a Marketing Manager at Thomson Reuters. She loves that it's her job to tell people why Rooftop is great. When she's not doing that, she writes, produces film and video projects, and explores Brooklyn on her bike.

Danielle Kourtesis, Music Coordinator
Danielle was born and raised in Brooklyn and graduated Brown University with a degree in Urban Studies. She has been Rooftop Films'
Music Programmer since 2007 and is the co-founder of Pop Mondial (NYC/Germany). Along with booking music, Danielle is a performer, director, and theater educator.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

David Belt
David is the Founder and Managing Principal of DBI, and the Executive Director and Founder of Macro Sea. He has become increasingly interested in transforming junk spaces and objects into fully utilized places of recreation and culture; he conceives and formulates each project's concept and vision and oversees each project's design and implementation. At present, he is working to debut a series of interim use projects; last summer he launched Macro Sea Pools 2009 where a scrap filled lot and dumpsters were turned into an urban, lo-fi swim and country club.

Jim Browne
Jim founded Argot Pictures in 2005, an independent film distribution company. He has been programming and producing film and video projects in New York City for the past 20 years. He is one of the producers of Fire Under the Snow, a documentary about Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese government for 33 years. He has been Associate Programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival for the past 3 years.

Anne Carey
Anne is an independent film producer based in New York City. Together with Ted Hope, Anthony Bregman and Diana Victor, Carey founded the New York City production company This is that, Inc. in 2002, based on the collaborative work they had begun at their previous company, Good Machine, Inc. Specializing in unique content and innovative storytelling, This is that produced 18 films in its eight-year existence. Carey currently has Anton Corbijn’s The American, written by Rowan Joffe and starring George Clooney in release through Focus Features. The film opened in the US on September 1st and internationally shortly thereafter. In 2008 Carey produced Adventureland, written and directed by Greg Mottola and starring Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. Adventureland was released through Miramax in April 2009.

Michael Clark
Michael is a Creative Exec at Big Beach Films, where he has worked on such projects as Little Miss Sunshine, Jack Goes Boating, and My Idiot Brother.

Catherine Martinez
Catherine was recently appointed the CFO of Downtown Community TV Center, a New York City Film and Video resource since 1972. She returns to DCTV after a 4-year stint as Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Orient-Express, a London-based luxury travel business. As CFO, Catherine oversees the financial operations for DCTV, as well as their production arm, Downtown Docs LLC. Catherine has also worked as a fashion designer, as a "cold-kitchen" Chef at an upscale restaurant in Stockholm, and as a tour guide in Paris. Catherine loves the short film format and has been attending Rooftop films events since 2001.

Brian Newman
Brian is the founder of sub-genre consulting, helping filmmakers and organizations to distribute content and connect with audiences and achieve greater impact through innovative uses of new technology. Brian was most recently CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI). He speaks regularly on new media, audience development and the future of the industry, and contributes to a blog on these subjects at Springboardmedia.

Casimir Nozkowski, Secretary
Casimir Nozkowski is a writer, director and internet stuff-maker. The co-creator of the award-winning website cryingwhileeating.com, he has written and directed short documentaries, short films, music videos and commercials that have been seen on television, online and in festivals around the world. He has been interviewed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Countdown with Keith Olbermann show, the Dylan Ratigan Show, on KROQ LA, and NPR. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The LA Times, London Times, VH1’s Best Week Ever, MADtv, Slate.com, Salon.com, on the Brian Lehrer Show, on IFC, FUSE, CNN, the CW, AMC and exhibited at the Larissa Goldston Gallery in New York City. He writes and produces the on-air promotion for the Emmy-winning AMC show Mad Men and he co-founded and directs the Internets Celebrities – an injustice-exposing documentary group. Online, his videos have been viewed millions of times and are collected at www.casimirnozkowski.com. He’s sat on the board of directors for Rooftop Films since 2006.

Sarah Palmer, Treasurer
Sarah was the Festival Director, photographer, and image archivist of Rooftop Films (2001 - 2006), when she left the staff and joined the Board of Directors. In 2008, she received her MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts. After two years as the Photo Editor of Metropolis, an architecture, design, and culture magazine, she was hired as full-time faculty in the Photography department of Parsons, The New School for Design. She divides her time between teaching and working as an artist, and has exhibited her work in the United States and in Europe. www.sarahpalmerphotography.com and www.yesinacircle.com

Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Chair
Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Rooftop Films.

BOARD ADVISORS

Joshua Breitbart
One of Rooftop's founders, Joshua is now the Policy Director for People's Production House, which teaches immigrants and public school students in New York City to be journalists and media policy experts. He writes a monthly column about media and technology for Gotham Gazette and he is on the board of Allied Media Projects, which hosts the annual Allied Media Conference for organizations like Rooftop Films. Joshua speaks regularly at industry gatherings, official hearings, public events, and media conferences, often to explain what the people in each place don’t understand about the goings-on at the other places.

J. Tad Barnes
Tad was recently the Director of Outreach and Community Relations at The River Project. He received his B.A. in Sociolinguistics for Public Relations at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1996, and his Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University in 2006. Tad has an extensive background in management in the non-profit sector, working for such organizations as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Funders Concerned About Aids, and the NYS Dept. of Health AIDS Institute. Tad has worked in the area of events and promotion for many large corporations, including Diesel, Stussy, Astralwerks and Playboy. Tad sits on the board of the Young Professionals Committee for Big Brothers/Big Sisters New York, and actively promotes and raises funds for the Cooper Bark dog run. Tad helped to bring Rooftop Films to Pier 26 on the Hudson River in 2004-05.

Amy Dotson
Amy is the Deputy Director at IFP, a 30-year old not-for-profit membership and advocacy organization that supports and serves the independent film community. Dotson is on the programming & screening committees for Gen Art and Hamptons International Film Festival and has served on the juries of such film festivals as Slamdance, Ashland, Atlanta and Sidewalk. Amy enjoys eating Nutella straight out of the jar, collecting Tracy Morgan memorabilia, and producing her first feature documentary with director Brad Beesley (Fearless Freaks, Summercamp!) on the women of the Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo.

Bruce Levingston
Pianist Bruce Levingston is one of today's leading figures in contemporary music. Many of the country's most important composers have written works for him including Philip Glass and Pulitzer Prize winners William Bolcom, David Del Tredici, George Perle and Charles Wuorinen. His Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center world premiere performances of their works have won notable critical acclaim. The New Yorker describes him as "elegant and engaging", "a poetic pianist who has a gift for inventive - and glamorous - programming" while The New York Times calls his performances "graceful", "sensuous" and "hauntingly serene." Mr. Levingston is also Artistic Director of the Premiere Commission and sat on the board of Rooftop Films 2006-11. www.premierecommission.org  

Lucila Moctezuma
Lucila was recently the director of the Media Arts Fellowships at the Tribeca Film Institute, a program founded and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation that supports media artists in the US and Latin America. She has collaborated with the Margaret Mead Film Festival in NY, the Morelia Film Festival in Mexico, the Huesca International Film Festival in Spain. She serves on the Board of Trustees for the Flaherty Film Seminar and on the Advisory Boards for Forum Internacional de Cine de Monterrey and New Children/New York. Lucila has worked in different areas of production, including The New Americans, produced by Kartemquin Films for PBS, and Shocking and Awful produced by Deep Dish TV. Lucila has worked in New York's independent film community since 1996, including the IFP and the Latin American Video Archive.

Dana O’Keefe
Dana O'Keefe is a senior executive in the sales and management divisions at Cinetic Media. O'Keefe has worked as a representative for numerous producers and filmmakers over the course of his tenure at Cinetic. Currently, he works primarily as a manager, overseeing the careers of a roster of directors. Prior to Cinetic, Dana O'Keefe worked as a photojournalist and as an independent filmmaker. He graduated Wesleyan University with a degree in Government. His short film “The New Yorkist” screened at Rooftop in 2008.  

Josh Penn
Josh is a Producer for Court 13 International, with which he has produced the film Glory at Sea, which played in Rooftop's 2008 series. He has also produced several music videos for the band MGMT with Partizan and Columbia Records. He is currently producing the first features of two Rooftop alums, Matthew Lessner and Benh Zeitlin. When not producing movies, Josh runs Desolation Records and promotes concert and film events in Philadelphia.

Philip Rosenberg 
Philip is a retired novelist and screenwriter. He has been involved with Rooftop Films since the very first screening, in part because of his commitment to independent cinema, in part because he is the father of Rooftop co-founder and Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their two dogs.

Molly Thompson
Molly launched and runs A&E IndieFilms, the network's feature documentary division. She executive produces the divisions original productions including: Jesus Camp, a film by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, which was nominated for an Academy Award; and American Teen, a film by Nanette Burstein which won best director at Sundance 2008 and will be released by Paramount Vantage this summer. Thompson also is EP on a film on Anna Wintour directed by RJ Cutler; and a film on Pat Tillman directed by Amir Bar Lev. Other A&E IndieFilms include the Oscar-nominated, Sundance Award-winner Murderball, and My Kid Could Paint That.

Nicole Tschampel
Nicole is a visual artist living and working in New York City. She received her Masters degree in Combined Media at Hunter College in the spring of 2005 and currently teaches there. Her sculptural works and videos have been included in the multiple national and international exhibitions most recently Feel Good, Feel Bad Boys and Girls, at Lange Gasse 28, in Augsburg, Germany, well-known treasures, a screening at Sara Meltzer Gallery in New York, and Painting 2008, at The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Michigan.