New York's Rooftop Films Series Kicks Off 15th Season on May 13

Tonight marks the launch of the 15th season of one of the coolest movie events around, the Rooftop Films series. The film festival/flash mob/mass sit in began in 1997 as the brainchild of filmmaker Mark Elijah Rosenberg, who needed a way to entice people to watch his short films. He called a few filmmaker friends, put a program together including both his and their works, bought an old 16mm projector and a big white sheet, hand-printed some invitations, and a staple of the New York film scene was born.

“Growing up in New York, I’d always hung out on rooftops,” says Rosenberg, “because in NYC rooftops are common refuges. I thought if I hosted a screening I could get a lot of people to come out to see my films and my friends films and other short films that weren’t getting seen.” At the time, Rosenberg saw the rooftop party as a one-time event: " I didn’t necessarily think I would do it again, but it went well so I did it again the following year, and in 1999 hosted five events, and it’s grown from there." “Grow” is an understatement—this summer Rooftop Films will screen over 25 features and over 150 shorts.

And even Rosenberg never could have foreseen the heights to which the series has risen. It boasts such bigtime partners as IFC, New York magazine, Time Warner, South by Southwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts. And it’s helped launch some pretty impressive films into the mainstream. “I’m really proud of some of the discoveries we’ve had,” Rothenberg says, glowing. “Films like October Country (dir. Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher) which we showed first and later went on to much acclaim and a national theatrical distribution, and Winnebago Man (dir. Ben Steinbauer), which was acquired for distribution at Rooftop. Then there are films like Trouble the Water, _Gasland _and Waste Land, which all screened at Rooftop and went on to larger releases and even Academy Award nominations.”

Since the beginning, Rooftop has provided a great way for filmmakers to have their films seen, but they recently decided to help past Rooftop-featured filmmakers in a more tangible way. “We’ve begun helping produce films through our grant program, the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund,” explains Rosenberg. “Along with Edgeworx Studios, we gave a post-production grants to Martha Marcy May Marlene, which won the best director award at Sundance this year for Sean Durkin, and will be released by Fox Searchlight in October. We also gave a grant to The City Dark, a documentary by Ian Cheney about light pollution. We’ll be screening that film on June 5, before its theatrical release.”

This year’s series includes new ventures into Coney Island (the first outdoor screening series ever there) and Philadelphia. It also boasts such buzzy films as The Sound of Noise, The Catechism Cataclysm, and Codependent Lesbian Alien Seeks Same. Most importantly to us, the series also includes such Paste festival favorites as The Redemption of General Butt Naked and, of course, Bellflower.

And what comes next for Rooftop Films? “We’re excited to keep growing, putting on more elaborate shows with more unique entertainment,” Rothenberg muses. “We’re excited to go to new neighborhoods, and to new cities. This summer we’ve already co-presented screenings in Toronto with Hot Docs, and will be going to Philadelphia soon with the Philadelphia Underground Film Festival. And we’re excited to get ever more people to see interesting, challenging, wonderful new independent films.”

For tickets and more information, head on over to the site.

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