Rooftop Films is more than a film festival—we are a collaborative community of filmmakers, audience, venues and neighborhoods. One of our most innovative programs is The Rooftop Filmmakers' Fund, a slate of grants given to selected filmmakers whose work has screened at the festival. We have a number of grants available:

+ The Rooftop Films & Eastern Effects Equipment Grant. Rooftop is working with the excellent Brooklyn rental house Eastern Effects to award one feature film a full lighting & grip package. The recipient will be announced in March 2008.

+ The Short Film Grant. Rooftop earmarks $1 from every ticket sold and from every film submission fee received to give to select new projects which our filmmakers are working on. You can read about past grants here. In 2007-08, Rooftop Films will give out almost $12,000 in cash grants. The 2007-08 recipients are announced below.

+ And soon we will be announcing new partnerships with other organizations that will create even more grant and commissioning opportunities for our filmmakers.

2007-08 ROOFTOP FILMMAKERS’ FUND RECIPIENTS

Heidi Brandenburg & Matt Orzel
“Untitled Peruvian Rainforest Documentary.”
Heidi and Matt are a pair of German and Welsh filmmakers who created “Sonneman,” an astonishingly lovely and insightful documentary about a man who pursues his dream of living a life with nature, away from the conventions of Western society, discontent with the trappings of the modern world. For their new film, Heidi and Matt have been traveling through the Peruvian Rainforest, spending time with the indigenous peoples and watching as their lives are changed by the increasing pace of oil and gas mining. “The film will show the relationship between the land and its inhabitants, exposing the disruptions to their traditional way of life and their spiritual connection to the land, due to oil extraction. The film will subtly capture the dangers of destroying the Amazon Rainforest with links to global warming and the world’s dependency on oil, expressing the relevance of this situation not only as Peruvian concern, but also as a global problem.” www.yachaywasifilms.co.uk

Bill Brown, “Cumberland.”
Utilizing his unique and fascinating first-person experimental documentary style, Bill is making “a landscape film about torture.” Bill will be reconstructing the lives of the 7 members of the 372 Military Police Company who were convicted of abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He will spend time around Cumberland, MD, where these reservists were from, a place that has been transformed from a place that once exported manufactured goods into a place of tremendous economic hardship which now exports soldiers to fight faraway wars. Bill hopes to replace the iconic images of the distant and repellent abused detainees with images that are close-by and recognizable: to trace the line of inquiry from Iraq to the private prisons, fast-food restaurants and big box stores of Cumberland. “I am interested how in a global economy, a small American town is an extension of the global marketplace, and how in a global war on terror, it is an extension of the battlefield. I hope to understand a little better how seven representatives of America’s battered working class came to bear the responsibility for the failure of America’s foreign policy and moral authority.” Bill hails from Lubbock, TX, and Rooftop screened his films “Mountain State” and “Roswell” in 2004 and 2005.

Don Hertzfeldt, “Everything Will Be OK (part 2).”
Don premiered the first chapter of his triptych “Everything Will Be OK” at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where the film won the Grand Jury Prize for Short Film. The film follows a stick-figure named Bill as he grapples with depression and madness, and in the new chapter will find Bill struggling with the death of a loved one, the ever-present question of his health, and the apparent unraveling of time. Don has a magically deadpan narrative style, and his elegantly simple drawings, mixed with a dazzling array of direct-animation effects and an ingenious sound design, create an astonishingly moving film. Don lives in Goleta, CA, and is the youngest non-actor ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. Throughout his career he has turned down commercial jobs and lucrative TV deals in order to retain creative control over his animations. www.bitterfilms.com

Melanie Shatzky & Brian M. Cassidy,
“The Blessing of the Animals.”
Brian and Melanie created the eerie documentary “God Provides,” about people in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and Brian co-directed “Fish Kill Flea,” a feature-length film about a dying mall in upstate New York. Their work “forgoes conventional storytelling methods in order to accommodate stark imagery, elusive characters and a deadpan realism” in a manner which Filmmaker Magazine described as “cogent and sickly surreal.”  Their new film will be a “portrait of love, death and devotion, as witnessed on the day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.” The footage is moving and disturbing, subtly raising questions about both secular and religious faith in a very personal manner. This stand-alone short is also part of a longer piece they are making titled "The Patron Saints," a project about faith and uncertainty. Brian and Melanie work out of Brooklyn, NY, and you can read more about their work at www.pigeonprojects.com

Spencer Parsons,
“Chainsaw Found Jesus.”
Spencer’s various films—including “Resolution,” “Once and Future Asshole,” and the upcoming feature “I’ll Come Running,”—utilize a kind of hyper-reality which blends unexpected narrative techniques with a dynamic flair for poignant dialogue and insightful characters. This new film is “a melancholy comedy about two fathers, two sons, and the cocaine sale that brings them all together for an everyday adventure.” Far from your standard drug movie, the sad but hilarious and bizarre script is about “the moment before making a change, and maybe worrying that change just means trading up one sorry addiction for another.” Spencer is one of the co-founders of CinemaTexas, a professor at University of Texas, and, as a crucial member of the vibrant Austin film scene, has been a long-time collaborator with Rooftop Films.

Look for their films at the 2008 Summer Series!

ABOUT THE ROOFTOP FILMMAKER'S FUND

Rooftop has two grants available, one for short films and one for feature-length films. We believe that short films do not receive the attention they deserve in the world of film, and that all too often even a festival which prominently includes short films does little for the filmmaker in the long run.

For the short film grant, Rooftop Films earmarks one dollar from every regularly-priced ticket sold and every submission fee received for the Filmmakers' Fund. Twice a year, all filmmakers whose movies have screened at Rooftop Films are eligible to apply for grants for their future productions. We believe that instead of giving each filmmaker ten dollars, giving away a few larger sums (up to $3,000) toward specific projects is a better way to help the filmmakers and the independent filmmaking community in general.

For the feature-length film grant, Rooftop Films works with our partner Eastern Effects to provide 30 days of lighting and grip equipment to one feature-length film.

It is our mission to provide a full-service outlet for makers of independent films—from production to exhibition to distribution and back to the next production. In this way, Rooftop Films works like no other festival to promote and further the art of the short film and support independent filmmaking.

Read about the films we have funded in the past here.

** Please note that only directors and producers of films which have previously screened at Rooftop Films are eligible for grants. If you were a key collaborator on a film that screened at Rooftop, or have questions regarding your eligibility, please email filmfund@rooftopfilms.com.