Time Machines, Tangerines, and Electric Queens: The 2015 Summer Series Opening Weekend and Features Lineup!

Rooftop Films is proud to announce our Opening Weekend, Features and select highlights of the 19th annual Rooftop Films Summer Series. This year’s series will feature over 40 outdoor screenings in 19 spectacular venues, with huge crowds, live music, special enhancements and the best in new, independent films from around the world.

We kick things off on Friday, May 29th, at our principal venue, Industry City, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, with some of the greatest new short films from around the world. The event will include the New York premiere of David Sandberg’s highly anticipated and hilarious short film, Kung Fury, which raised $630,000 on Kickstarter and the trailer for which has racked up more than 10,000,000 views online. The following night, Saturday, May 30th, we will head to the roof of The Old American Can Factory, in Gowanus, Brooklyn, to present Bob Byington’s charming off-beat comedy, 7 Chinese Brothers, starring Jason Schwartzman as an irrepressible man-child attempting to pull his life together and win over his boss at the Quick-Lube. David Sandberg will be in attendance opening night, Bob Byington and Jason Schwartzman will be in attendance on May 30th, and both evenings will feature live music before each screening and a post-screening after party, featuring Signature Sponsor New Amsterdam Spirits.

Tickets for both events will be on sale Tuesday, May 5th at 11:00 a.m. at www.rooftopfilms.com.  Rooftop Films members are admitted free of charge. Memberships are available at www.rooftopfilms.com/2015/info/membership.

We will continue throughout the summer with screenings each week in a variety of stellar outdoor locations. It’s our goal with each event and each season to re-imagine the festival and reinvigorate communities across New York. With live performances, audience interaction, and enhanced themed events at amazing venues, Rooftop turns each film screening into an unforgettable event.

Our full feature film slate includes exceptional fiction films, such as Sean Baker’s warm-hearted yet riotously entertaining Tangerine; Trey Shults’ powerful SXSW-winning Krisha; Frank V. Ross’ delicately personal Bloomin’ Mud Shuffle; Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s bone-chilling psychological thriller Goodnight Mommy; and many more fantastic films, including Zachary Treitz’ Rooftop Films Edgeworx grantee Men Go To Battle, Joe Swanberg’s Digging for Fire, and more.

We are also excited to show powerful, innovative and invigorating documentaries. This year’s slate includes non-fiction discoveries from all across the world: Crystal Moselle’s critically acclaimed The Wolfpack; Khalik Allah’s ground-breaking Field Niggas; Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel’s wildly entertaining Finders Keepers; Jason Zeldes’ Romeo is Bleeding; Hao Zhou’s The Chinese Mayor; Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken’s Divine Location; and many more great docs, including Welcome to Leith, Kings of the Wind and Electric Queens, Spartacus and Cassandra, and Sam Klemke’s Time Machine, just to name a few.

We’ve also searched the world for the very best short movies being made. This summer we will be returning with new editions of their signature themed short film programs, including two Romantic Shorts screenings, a New York Non-Fiction program, two showcases of groundbreaking animation, and many big thrillers, comedies, docs and dramas in small packages.

This year’s series also includes a number of special events and partnerships including our annual SXSW weekend, a Sundance short film program, a Swedish Focus in partnership with the Swedish Film Institute, a presentation of The Skin Deep’s {The And} interactive event, and more special screenings to be announced soon.

All shows include live-music before the screenings and most include filmmaker Q&As and complementary after parties. The Summer Series will also include more than 13 programs of short films, and there will be additional feature films and special events announced shortly.

Rooftop Films 19th Annual Summer Series Opening Weekend

Friday, May 29, 2015

This is What We Mean by Short Films

Opening Night of Rooftop Films 19th Annual Summer Series will feature eaght short films about epic adventures, including the NY premiere of David Sandberg’s Kung Fury.

The Films: Kung Fury (David Sandberg), La nuit américaine d’Angélique (Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet & Joris Clerté), All Your Favorite  Shows! (Danny Madden), Actor Seeks Role (Michael Tyburski), Butter Ya’Self (Julian Petschek), The Land (Erin Davis), Lesley the Pony Has an A+ Day! (Christian Larrave), Thank Ewe (Keith Wilson).

Saturday, May 30, 2015

7 Chinese Brothers (Bob Byington)
Bob Byington’s latest hangdog comedy, starring Jason Schwartzman and his trusty sidekick, Arrow.

Feature Films (more films, dates and venues to be announced soon):

Bloomin Mud Shuffle (Frank V. Ross)
A charming drama about a house-painter in love, from one of the Midwest’s finest indie auteurs.

The Chinese Mayor (Hao Zhou)
The fascinating life of a bureaucrat restoring ancient ruins at the expense of his own career.

Digging for Fire (Joe Swanberg)
Jake Johnson digs for answers in Joe Swanberg’s latest indie-star-studded drama. Courtesy of The Orchard.

Divine Location (Michael Loeken & Ulrike Franke)
A subtly delightful comic portrait of a small German town undergoing huge changes.

Field Niggas (Khalik Allah)
A visceral documentary captures the inhabitants and sultry streets of Harlem in mid-summer.

Finders Keepers (Bryan Carberry & Clay Tweel)
A man finds a dismembered foot in an auctioned meat smoker. Then things get strange. Courtesy of The Orchard.

Goodnight Mommy (Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz)
A bone-chilling Austrian thriller about two young boys and their mysteriously altered mother. Courtesy of RADiUS-TWC.

Kings of the Wind and Electric Queens (Cédric Dupire & Gaspard Kuentz)
A compelling and hypnotic glimpse into one of India’s wildest carnivals.

Krisha (Trey Shults)
Rooftop grantee Trey Shults’ daring, SXSW-winning drama about a family on the brink.

Men Go To Battle (Zachary Treitz)
A Civil War epic of intimate proportions, written & directed by Rooftop Film Fund Grantees.

Romeo is Bleeding (Jason Zeldes)
The youth of a Northern Californian city mount an urban adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

Sam Klemke’s Time Machine (Matthew Bate)
A free-wheeling and non-fiction portrait of an extra-ordinary nobody, 35 years in the making.

Spartacus & Cassandra (Ioanis Nuguet)
An intimate cinematic portrait of two Roma children forced to become their parents’ parents.

Tangerine (Sean Baker)
Sean Baker’s rowdy tale of a transgender prostitute searching for the pimp that broke her heart. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Welcome to Leith (Michael Beach Nichols & Christopher K. Walker)
Aryan militants invade a small North Dakota town. The town fights back.

The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle)
The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously. But after one of the brothers escapes the apartment, the power dynamics in the house are transformed, and all the boys begin to dream of venturing out. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Special Events:

{The And}
An interactive social experiment that explores the labyrinths of human intimacy.