For the sixth year in a row, Rooftop Films has teamed up with IFP to showcase projects workshopped in their Filmmakers Labs program during the annual Independent Film Week happening September 16 through the 20th. Throughout the years, Rooftop Films have included some of the finalized films in our programming with such features as Welcome to Pine Hill and The Patron Saints playing in this year’s Summer Series. So attending the showcase gives you, our audience members the chance to become invested in new projects and to potentially see excerpts of films that could play at Rooftop Films in the future.
Here is a line-up of the excerpts of films scheduled to screen on Monday, September 17. The showcase is free and includes complimentary beer and some of the filmmakers will be in attendance so you can ask them questions and find out more about their work.
IFP Labs Showcase line-up:
Narratives:
BASTARDS OF YOUNG
Written, directed and produced by Josiah Signor, produced by Mike Rossetti, Robert Profusek, Ryan Silbert, and Gigi Dement, and executive produced by Alexandre Rockwell. Kevin and Julie throw their last annual Halloween party, but instead of celebrating, friends are forced to confront darker realities: adultery, divorce, and pregnancy. Hijinks ensue.
BLUE CAPRICE
Written and directed by Alexandre Moors, written by R.F.I. Porto, produced by Isen Robbins, Aimee Schoof, Ron Simons, Kim Jackson, Stephen Tedeschi, and Brian O’Carroll, and executive produced by Hilary Stabb, Jonathan Gray, Will Rowbotham, Tara Kromer, and Isaiah Washington. Blue Caprice is a narrative feature film inspired by the events known as the Beltway sniper attacks.
CONCUSSION
Written and directed by Stacie Passon, produced by Rose Troche, and executive produced by Anthony Cupo and Cliff Chenfeld. By day, as her kids sit in school, a bored, wealthy, lesbian housewife from the suburbs becomes a prostitute for women.
EL EMPANTANADO (THE MUDDY)
Written and directed by Felipe Echavarria, produced by Maggie Drayton and executive produced by Dawson Peden and Egon Stephan Jr. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, a Colombian kidnap victim must decide whether to punish or forgive his best friend, his wife, and himself.
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM
Written and directed, by Andrew Mudge, produced by Cecil Matlou and TR Boyce, and executive produced by Terry Leonard. Returning to Lesotho to bury his father, a young man rediscovers the beauty and hardships
of the people and land he had forgotten.
GO DOWN DEATH
Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, and produced by Vanessa McDonnell and Caroline Oliveira. A frail schoolboy, a sinister doctor, a disfigured outcast, incompetent soldiers, and others await their demise in this adaptation of folktales by Jonathan Mallory Sinus.
HIDE YOUR SMILING FACES
Written, directed and produced by Daniel Carbone, and produced by Matthew Petock, Zachary Shedd, and Jordan Bailey-Hoover. An atmospheric exploration of nature, grief, and mortality in rural America seen through the
eyes of two adolescent brothers who lose a close friend.
I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS
Written and directed by Leah Meyerhoff, produced by Heather Rae, and executive produced by Allison Anders.
A teenage girl avoids caring for her disabled mother by running away with an older boy, but not even unicorns can save her now.
KARAOKE GIRL
Written and directed by Visra Vichit Vadkan and produced by Pornmanus Rattavanich and Samina Akbari. Balancing fact and fiction, dream and reality, “Karaoke Girl” follows Sa, a young country girl who works at a karaoke bar in Bangkok to support her family back home.
LAND OF TOMORROW
Written and directed by Kimberly Levin, produced by Kurt Pitzer, and executive produced by Will Battersby and Julia Chasman. As financial pressures mount on her family’s farm-supply business, Betty commits an unthinkable crime for the sake of her husband and sons.
Documentaries:
ALIAS RUBY BLADE
Directed by Alex Meillier, produced by Alex Meillier and Tanya Ager Meillier, and executive produced by Abigail Disney and GiniReticker. One courageous woman risks everything for love of the imprisoned leader of a nation
struggling for freedom. Together they nurture the tumultuous birth of the world’s newest nation – Timor-Leste.
BIG JOY: THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES BROUGHTON
Directed by Stephen Silha and Eric Slade; produced by Stephen Silha, Eric Slade, and Max St. Romain, and executive produced by Stephen Silha and Jok Church. “Big Joy” illustrates the power of art and poetry to change lives, using the life and work of pansexual poet/filmmaker James Broughton as a lens.
BRAVE NEW WILD
Directed and written by Oakley Anderson-Moore; produced by Alexander Reinhard. In 1950′s America, social outcasts risk their lives to start a revolution: climb rocks all the time.
FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES
Directed and produced by Mike Ambs, written by Mike Ambs and Erica Hampton. A story of a young man split between two lives, struggling to feel at home after a 60-day bicycle ride across the northern United States.
LUCKY
Directed by Laura Checkoway and produced by Laura Checkoway and Neyda Martínez. Orphaned as a child, Lucky Torres is a defiant survivor. Masked in tattoos, the Bronx lesbian is desperate to keep her son and escape poverty.
OUR NIXON
Directed by Penny Lane and Brian Frye, produced by Penny Lane, and executive produced by Dan Cogan and Jenny Raskin. Never before seen Super 8 home movies of Richard Nixon’s closest aides – and convicted Watergate conspirators – offer an intimate and surprising glimpse into his presidency.
PURGATORIO
Directed and produced by Rodrigo Reyes; executive produced by Hugo Perez. Purgatorio brings together a universe of stories into a compelling cinematic experience that takes audiences into the very soul of life on the border.
SURVIVAL PRAYER
Directed and produced by Benjamin Greené. Survival Prayer celebrates the modern lifeways of a remote indigenous community against the backdrop of cultural loss and natural calamity.
THESE BIRDS WALK
Directed by Bassam Tariq and Omar Mullick and produced by Bassam Tariq, Omar Mullick, and Valentina Canavesio. A portrait of contemporary Pakistan is created through the eyes of an ambulance driver and a runaway boy who call a humanitarian and his mission-based organization home.
WHERE GOD LIKES TO BE
Directed by Nicolas Hudak and Anna Hudak, and produced by Anna Hudak “Where God Likes to Be” portrays young Native Americans’ struggle to find their place in a 21st-century America that wants to forget the past.
So be sure to read about each of the films in development before watching the excerpts at the free show on Monday, September 17. Make your predictions about what may play at the 2013 Summer Series and keep track of these films as they go along in their process.