ROOFTOP FILMS AND THE VAN ALEN INSTITUTE present OPEN Views Short Films on Governors Island Sponsored by Target Stores Friday, August 6, 2004 FREE On the ferry: Live music by Craig Colorusso 7:30 - Live free jazz by The Mushroom Cloud 8:00 - Live rock n roll by The Bravery Films will start at 8:30 Governors Island is located in New York Harbor, between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Free ferries will leave from Slip 7 at the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan every half hour. The show is free, but you must RSVP to reserve a place on a ferry. Please do so through the Van Alen Institute website. Great photos and more info are available there, too. In the event of rain, the show will be indoors on the island. The first 500 reservation-holders to arrive will be allowed access. In this show, Rooftop Films and the Van Alen Institute present short motion pictures about land, space, structures and movement. From film to film, the audience can ponder the similarities of distant places, the differences between various journeys, the rights and claims that diverse peoples have to the earth. With fiction, documentaries, experimental films and animation, the range of subjects covered within the films are all presented in differing but complimentary styles. At the tip of Governors Island—land reclaimed by the city for the people—with a stunning view of all New York City as a backdrop, these films will make for a visually arresting and emotionally resonant show. THE FILMS: Devil's Teeth (Roger Teich, 8:30) www.devlisteeth.com A Rooftop Films co-production. A film about Ron Elliot, the only sea urchin diver who works the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, even though he regularly encounters enormous sharks. With a grant from the Rooftop Filmmakers' Fund, Roger Teich constructed an underwater helmet camera using a black and white surveillance video lens and cable so Ron can use his hands freely while the footage records the eerie underwater world, at the margins of grace and terror. The Roof Man (Janis Vingris, 35:00) A man whose hobby and work is to be closer to the sky, on the spires of churches, on top of the high-rises, on bridges and electric towers in his native Latvia. From these places, he looks at the daily street life with different eyes. Tired Beach (Perry Hallinan, 12:30) A strange man climbs onto a locked California beach to experience its decaying hazards in eerie, dance-like ways. This lovely performance documentary poetically touches on the issues of industrial refuse and its effect on our lands. Good Kid (Tim Sutton, 10:00) A young Hispanic man must travel all the way across New York to visit family in this beautiful and light drama. As we journey with him, we balance the length of his journey with the weight of his emotions, and wonder if we would be capable of enduring such a trip for simple pleasures. Fool Throttle (Todd Hemker & Morgan Williams, 5:33) Two animated old men traverse highways, graveyards and enormous potholes in a comic fight for motor scooter dominance. Occupation of the Ground (Marie-Francoise Plissart, 22:40) Shot entirely from the rooftops of Brussels, this confoundingly lovely documentary tricks your perceptions and stimulates your sense of space and sound. In this, her first motion picture, world-famous photographer Plissart makes good use of the format's ability to transform images into abstractions. The crowd at an outdoor concert is shot in short-focus, the dancing figures pulsating like cells within a human body. Yet via Plissart's alchemical eye, even the straightforward moments are hypnotic: shots of office blocks at night, with their never-to-be-repeated random pattern formed by lit/unlit room, resemble strips of celluloid laid out on a light box. The flea-market in early morning is transformed into an experimental dance of hands briefly illuminated by flashes of torch-lights as they scrabble for bargains. Terminal Bar (Stefan Nadelman, 22:00) A kinetic, photo-driven document of one of the toughest, grittiest bars in Times Square as seen through the haunting black and white shots taken by bartender Sheldon Nadelman. THE MUSIC: On the ferry: Craig Colorusso 7:30 - Free Jazz by The Mushroom Cloud 8:30 - Up from the underground and out of the basement clubs of Williamsburg and the Lower East Side come The Bravery, floating across the river on their buoyant new wave synthesizers and garage rock guitar riffs. www.thebravery.com Thank you to the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC), without whose support this event would not have been possible. GIPEC is responsible for the planning, redevelopment, and ongoing operations for 150 acres of Governors Island. GIPEC seeks to make Governors Island a destination with great public open space and heritage tourism attractions, as well as education, conference, and cultural arts facilities. This event is free due to the generous contribution of Minneapolis-based Target Stores serves guests at 1,249 stores in 47 states nationwide, including 13 stores in the New York metropolitan area, by delivering today's best retail trends at affordable prices. Whether visiting a Target store or shopping online at target.com, guests enjoy a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to thousands of unique and highly differentiated items. Target Stores, along with its parent company Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), gives back more than $2 million a week to its local communities through grants and special programs. Since opening its first store in 1962, Target has partnered with nonprofit organizations, guests and team members to help meet community needs. Target celebrates summer in New York with the July 25 openings of the Atlantic Terminal store in Brooklyn and the Riverdale store, located between Manhattan and the Bronx.