Friday, June 3rd, 2005
8:30 - Live country hip hop by Battlestar America (details below)
9:00 - First day of school
On the roof of Automotive High School
50 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Dress warmly (it's cooler on the roof than in the streets).
In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location.
This Is What We Mean By HOME MOVIES
Film does not tell the truth. Cameras distort images. Editing confounds time. And, of course, people lie. Films search for the truth, but the truth -- like a story told at camp by a group of little kids -- is mutable. Fiction attempts to reveal something true by creating an alternate reality. Experimental films reveal beauty and passion outside the literal world. Documentaries examine the world and formulate a construct of the truth. This program contains all those genres, but at Rooftop Films, our Home Movies program is all about honesty. Not truth, per se, but honesty. We want filmmakers who lay themselves on the line, are willing to laugh at themselves, doubt themselves. Filmmakers who are honest.
In this program, filmmakers turn the cameras on themselves and their families to delve into their loved onesÇ secret hopes, quirky perceptions, and deepest loves. Whether digging through arcane bits of family history four generations back, or using webcams to finally force parents to talk about their repressed sexual identities, these films are raw examinations of the filmmakersÇ passion. They expose emotions so tender, often the most telling parts have been left unsaid. Max Kestner knows his parents took notes on whether to have another child, but that page is missing from the family meeting book, an early indication of his parents crumbling relationship. ThereÇs only so much you can hear from Mike WeltÇs recording in NASAÇs control room on the day the Columbia shuttle disintegrated, but the weighted silences, the veiled tech-speak, and the stoic looks donÇt hide their anguish. And as Brandon Walley explores his reluctance to be a father, his joy at becoming one, and his tragic fears, he is too overcome to speak -- choosing titles instead -- and still hasnÇt brought himself to show the film to certain family members. All those silences, hidden and unspoken feelings, are stunningly revealed here.
In Happy Ending, the 16-year-old Chris Irrizarry asks his mother if sheÇs going to stay off drugs, but she canÇt tell him. SheÇs going to try, but she canÇt be sure. She canÇt tell the truth because she canÇt predict the future, but sheÇs honest. That uncertainty is hard for Chris to deal with. But one gets the sense that instead of another empty promise, heÇs happier that his mother was honest. For these filmmakers, for Rooftop Films, honesty is hard fought. And the struggle is worth watching.
THE FILMS:
Miles Above (Michael Welt, 25:00)
Two years ago, hundreds of amateur videographers turned out at dawn to witness the re-entry of the space shuttle Columbia. These home movies changed their lives forever, and Mike Welt has combined their revealing footage with the official feed from inside NASA headquarters to create an extraordinarily personal documentation of this national disaster.
Max By Chance (Max Kestner, 28:00)
Danish Director Max Kestner tells the story of himself, playfully animated within the realms of documentary. Max's story traces back several generations of his family to sailors, industrialists and Summer of Love hippies -- everyone depicted with whole-hearted love and equal amounts of irony. But there is more at stake here than the biographical filmic note of a single man. The film embraces with vulnerable playfulness life's many coincidences and grapples with questions such as genetics, destiny and family patterns of behavior.
9-20-2004 (Brandon Walley, 6:00)
A heartbreaking and heartwarming home movie about a man who was reluctant to be a father, but didn't expect how profoundly he'd be changed by his daughter Quinn.
A Bad Hair Day (Meesoo Lee, 7:00)
The director of Rooftop favorites Anxiety, Procrastination, Home Movie, A Good Philosophy and Pop Song 1 travels with his parents (and his video camera) back to their native Korea, where his father, wearing hair rollers and a pink perm cap, beseeches his son to get a haircut.
Small Town Secrets (Katherine Leggett, 9:00)
A lyrical and sweetly personal film and video scrapbook about growing up in a small town with two closeted gay parents.
Mad Cows vs. Crazy Eyes Dolphin (Ian Stewart, 5:40)
A sobering animated expose about how Mad Cow Disease is now killing dolphins. Via karate.
Ride of the Mergansers (Steve Furman, 11:00)
The Hooded Merganser is a rare and reclusive duck found only in North America. Every spring, in the Great Lakes region, the wary hen lays and incubates her eggs in a nest high in the trees. Just 24 hours after hatching, the tiny ducklings must make the perilous leap to the ground below to begin life in the wild. This age-old rite is rarely observed by humans. But now, thanks to the determination of a visionary first-time filmmaker, this hidden drama is brought to the screen.
Happy Ending (Chris Irrizarry, 11:00) courtesy of The Lab Sponsored by HBO
16-year-old filmmaker Chris Irrizarry journeys back to his hometown of Philadelphia to check in on his mother and stepfather and find out if they have cleaned up their lives and escaped the drug addiction that led to his separation from them.
THE MUSIC: Battlestar America's fearless team was conceived in the 70s as an elite fighting unit, and spent the last quarter of the 20th century training in seclusion to become a superior bionic ninja cowboy unit capable of defeating Dr. Destructo and his army of vampire robots. Now that Dr. Destructo has been abolished, this unstoppable team turns its attention to taking our country back from the clutches of corporate zombies with country-hip-hop music "so fat it needs its own zipcode." (www.battlestaramerica.com)
