Rooftop Selects: Farm-to-Screen Shorts

A day in the life of Claire, Farm Days is a heartfelt glimpse into the world of a farm manager and her twelve alpacas as they engage in feeding and trekking in the woods of Sheffield, UK.

Does dreaming allow us to imagine a better future, or prevent us from living our current lives? Shot in tableaus that sit in the space between film and still photography, the film documents the land and the people who work it. Reappropriating the talking head to open questions rather than answer them, Central and South American immigrants living in the Salinas Valley share divergent perspectives on the passage of time, acceptance of reality, and finding the space to dream. Rather than presenting definitive answers, the audience is given time and space to meditate on their own interpretations.

In North America, the Canada goose can be both an urban pest and a majestic creature that symbolizes the changing of the seasons. Many geese have adapted to city life but still retain their migratory wild instincts. In this film, the human perspective takes a step back and the world is seen through the eyes of urban Canada geese and their struggle for survival in the city landscape.

In the dazzling incandescence of an unknown desert, three donkeys discover an abandoned astronomical observatory and the universe. A sensorial, cinematic exploration of what a story can be.

The Voice of Bamboo follows Keiji, an elderly immigrant bamboo farmer, as he meditates on his symbiotic, lifelong relationship with bamboo. After fleeing from a post-World War II Japan, Keiji and his wife Stefani devoted themselves to recreating their own slice of Japan in the lush mountains of Western North Carolina. Now, over 35 years later, he is a master bamboo craftsman, steward, and musician. And he is more committed than ever on his quest to learn — and heal — from the mysterious plant that has become his mentor.

Dr. Karen Lips observed frogs in Costa Rica for several years. When she leaves the forest for a short time and returns, the frogs are gone. All of them. Dr. Lips sets out to find them — and encounters a horrible truth.

James is a novice beekeeper living on a historic farm in New York City. His old college buddy Jason periodically drops in to check out the bees and get a taste of ancestral living. Together, the odd couple experiences the simple joys of living off the land and the unforeseen complexities of urban ecology.