UPDATE: MAY 10 – WE MADE OUR GOAL! THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO PLEDGED. IT’S GONNA BE AN AMAZING SUMMER. WE’LL SEE YOU ON THE ROOF.
You can still buy a Rooftop membership, still a great value, still a big help to Rooftop.
What would you have given to shake Woody Allen’s hand after the first screening of What’s Up Tiger Lily? To discuss the intricacies of suspense in the originalThe Man Who Knew Too Much with the great Hitchcock before he was great? To ask a young Scorsese about the real life experiences that served as the inspiration for Mean Streets?
At Rooftop Films, we’re committed to bringing you an experience that goes beyond paying thirteen dollars to sit in a dark, air conditioned room with a random collection of strangers. That means that, in addition to great new independent films, we want to bring you live semi-pro wrestling matches, secret performances by musical guerrillas, and see-it-to-believe-it reanimated robo-animals.
But none of this can happen without your help, so pledge now.
By supporting this Kickstarter campaign, you’ll be:
- Supporting great events like the live semi-professional wrestling match featuring the subjects from Robert Green’s documentary Fake It So Real, which, with your help, we’ll be presenting before the screening of the film
- Helping Rooftop bring as many filmmakers as possible to talk to you about how they made their film
- Making it possible for as many of the cast, crew, and subjects of our films to get the chance to see their movie on a roof in front of hundreds of people
- Rewarding yourself with great prizes like Rooftop Films Memberships, which get you and your friends in for FREE to every Rooftop show, all summer long
Discounted Rooftop Memberships are limited, so go ahead, pledge now.
So who are these filmmakers we want you to help us help you meet? Here’s just a sample:
- Robert Green, director of Fake It So Real, which follows a ragtag group of independent, semi-professional wrestlers in North Carolina, exploring what happens when the over-the-top theatrics of the wrestling ring collide with the realities of the working-class South. As we said, if we make our goal on Kickstarter, this show will include a live wrestling match featuring the wrestlers from the film.
- Swedish filmmakers Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stfarne Nillsson, who directed the clever and maniacally entertaining comedy Sound of Noise, about a group of “musical terrorists” who break into hospitals, banks, and other public places to play compositions using the surroundings as their instruments. With your support, we’ll fly in the musicians from the film for a special, live, sneak attack performance.
- Director Jarred Alterman, whose gorgeous documentary Convento transports us into the world of Christiaan Zwanikken, a Dutch kinetic artist who makes robots out of local dead wildlife. With your help, we’ll fly Christiaan and his robots out to meet you.
- Filmmakers Mikel Cee Karlsson and Fredrik Egerstrand, who followed the fascinating Jose Gonzalez for three years on tour, at home, and in the studio to make the film The Extraordinary Ordinary Life of Jose Gonzalez.
- Madeline Olnek, director of Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, a delightfully campy send-up of 50’s Sci-Fi. The film follows the adventures of love-sick lesbian space aliens on the planet Earth, and as you can imagine, it’s expensive to bring all those lesbian aliens all the way from outer space to New York City, especially since the hotels will be jam-packed with sapphic extraterrestrials in town for the gay pride parade.
- The interplanetary filmmakers of Orbit (Film), a collaborative, feature-length omnibus movie about our solar system where every planet is represented by a short film, coproduced by Rooftop Films and Cinemad.
- Zachary Raines, whose very serious comedy Freeloader will make its World Premiere as a part of Rooftop’s 2011 Opening Weekend. The film follows Frank, a feckless young man recently dumped by his girlfriend. In need of a place to stay, Frank moves from couch to couch, testing the patience of friends – and the kindness of strangers – until his luck runs out.
Now, don’t you want to meet them all?
Rooftop Films is a non-profit organization, and we see it as a part of our mission to present many of our shows for free, and to keep our ticket prices low ($10) when we do charge. Unfortunately, this means that what we make from ticket sales does not even begin to cover what it costs to bring you face to face with the filmmakers whose films you’ve just seen.
So what can you do to help? Pledge to support our Kickstarter campaign, and tell your friends. When you support this campaign, you’re helping the great directors of tomorrow come and explain themselves to you, their audience. And that way, everyone wins.