Online ticketing is closed. Tickets will be available at the door starting at 7:00. Cash only.
Saturday, June 29
On the roof of New Design High School
350 Grand St. @ Essex (Lower East Side, Manhattan)
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Live music
9:00PM: Films
11:30PM-1:00AM: After-party at Fontana’s (105 Eldridge St. @ Grand)
Leading into the 4th of July, Rooftop takes an honest look at authentic Americana, in all its absurd glory.
America is a strange place, as bizarre as it is diverse. Cowboys toil in obscurity while pro wrestlers become larger than life. Celebrity shoplifters might cross paths with zombie hunting store clerks. And while communities bicker over the personal ways they want to honor the dead, a young man who should be hailed as a truth-telling hero is instead outed as a traitor. But whatever problems arise, this program of documentaries reminds us that above all Americans embrace their individuality, so come explore the nooks and crooks and crannies and grannies of our crazy culture.
- Mark Elijah Rosenberg
THE FILMS:
Rougarouing (Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher | 11’) *
Rougarouing is Cajun for "dangerous carousing."
The Roper (Ewan McNicol | 6’)
Cowboys still exist, competing for a spot in the Vegas finals and standing on horseback in convenience store parking lots.
When The Zombies Come (Jon Hurst | 9’)
Small-town big-box-store employees kill time by plotting to kill zombies, warping the way they see the store and its customers.
The Blazing World (Jessica Bardsley | 18‘) *
An evocative and intimate essay film made of stolen materials, mediating on shoplifting, depression and Winona Ryder.
INTERMISSION
Hogan (Peter Millard | 2’)
What’s more American, or absurd, than Hulkamania?
Movies Made from Home #15 (Robert Machoian | 4’)
Like many Americans, Robert is attempting to keep himself healthy and fit in order to live as long as possible, unaware of what that really means.
Bradley Manning Had Secrets (Adam Butcher | 6’)
The story of Bradley Manning, not as a Wikileaks ‘hacktivist’, but as a young American soldier simultaneously going through a crisis-of-conscience and a crisis-of-identity.
Memorial Land (Bill Brown | 31’) *
Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund recipient. In the decade since the events of 9/11/2001, the United States has been engaged in a national act of memorial making. Some of these 9/11 memorials are contested sites, where conflicting visions and voices clash. But most are quiet and deeply personal. This short non-fiction film examines some of these memorials, and the reasons why seven people made the unlikely decision to build them.
* Rooftop alumni.
