SOLD OUT
Thursday, August 8
On the lawn of Automotive High School
50 Bedford Ave. @ North 13th St. (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Live music
9:00PM: Film
11:30PM-1:00AM: After-party at Matchless (557 Manhattan Ave. @ Driggs)
Thirteen-year-old Pug wants nothing more than to join the 12 O’Clock Boys, the notorious Baltimore dirt bike pack, in this exciting and unusual tale about coming of age in urban America.
(Lotfy Nathan | 76 min.) For the respectable citizens of Baltimore, the 12 O’Clock Boys, a notorious urban dirt bike pack, are a nuisance. They dangerously — yet magnificently — make their presence known as they pop wheelies and weave in and out of traffic at excessive speeds, all the while taunting the police who must obey a self-imposed “no chase” rule for fear of endangering the public.
There is no denying the risk. Dirt bike accidents claim a dozen or so Baltimore lives each year in an ongoing game of cat and mouse between the illegal riders and the police. But for Pug, growing up in a dangerous West Baltimore neighborhood, the 12 O’Clock Boys are heroes. They get their name from their trademark move: riding with their front wheel angled straight up. “Like the hands on the clock,” explains Pug. “You get to twelve o'clock, you're the shit. You know you’re in the pack. That's when you can really shine.”
Director Lotfy Nathan shows us the world of the 12 O’Clock Boys through Pug’s eyes, with exhilarating footage of the bikers in action and cinematic mosaics of the Baltimore night, a place where, as one of the bikers puts it, “you will learn the right way to do all the wrong things.” For Pug, the 12 O’Clock Boys are everything you could ever want from a role model: powerful, daring, free. 12 O’Clock Boys paints a heartbreaking, lyrical and intimate portrait of growing up.
Rooftop showed a trailer for this film at the first Kickstarter Film Festival in 2010, and we’re thrilled to bring it to you at the perfect venue, Automotive High School in Williamsburg.
- Lela Scott MacNeil
