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 most recent recipients are announced below.
+ Rooftop Films will be announcing new grant partnerships and awards in the near future, so stay posted!
2007-08 ROOFTOP FILMMAKERS’ FUND RECIPIENTS
(listed alphabetically – read full details here)
+ Heidi Brandenburg & Matt Orzel, “untitled Peruvian Rainforest doc.”
+ Bill Brown, “Cumberland.”
+ Don Hertzfeldt, “Everything Will Be OK (part 2).”
+ Melanie Shatzky & Brian M. Cassidy, “The Blessing of the Animals.”
+ Spencer Parsons, “Chainsaw Found Jesus.”
+ Heidi Brandenburg & Matt Orzel, “untitled Peruvian Rainforest documentary.”
Heidi and Matt are spending time with the indigenous peoples and watching as their lives are changed by the increasing pace of oil and gas mining, with links to global warming and the world’s dependency on oil.
www.yachaywasifilms.co.uk
+ Bill Brown, “Cumberland.”
Utilizing his unique and fascinating first-person experimental documentary style, 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.
+ Don Hertzfeldt, “Everything Will Be OK (part 2).”
The 2nd part of Don’s Sundance-Award winning film which follows a stick-figure named Bill as he grapples with depression and madness. 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.
www.bitterfilms.com
+ Melanie Shatzky & Brian M. Cassidy, “The Blessing of the Animals.”
Melanie and Brian’s 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.”
www.pigeonprojects.com.
+ Spencer Parsons, “Chainsaw Found Jesus.”
Spencer’s film is “a melancholy comedy about two fathers, two sons, and the cocaine sale that brings them all together for an everyday adventure.”
Read more about the projects at www.rooftopfilms.com/produce.html.
Rooftop Films received a record number of applicants this year, and we are thrilled to see so many of our alumnae filmmakers working on exciting new projects. Good luck to all the filmmakers.
Look for their films at the 2008 Summer Series!