Rooftop Films announced the short film slate for this year’s 2022 Rooftop Films Summer Series including Opening and Closing Night short film programs, their annual New York Non-Fiction screening featuring a live performance by the Freedom Dabka Group, short films to play before live musical performances at Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage in Central Park, a Cemetery Shorts program in historic Green-Wood Cemetery, a program of twisted romantic tales, and free screenings of short animation, thrillers and documentaries throughout the city.
Rooftop Films also added Sara Dosa’s record-breaking Sundance hit Fire of Love to their Summer Series, as well as announcing free community screenings of Disney’s Encanto and Way of the Dragon.
As part of Rooftop Films continuing partnership with Capital One City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage, they will screen the following short films ahead of their concerts in Central Park; Adrian Moyse Dullin’s The Right Words prior to MC Solaar; Jessica Bardsley’s Life Without Dreams and Iva Gocheva’s My Heart Is My Only Country playing with Waxahatchee; Jennie Williams’ Nalujuk Night before Black Midi; Dania Bdeir’s Warsha playing with Sons of Kemet, and Gerhard Funk’s A Goat’s Spell and Jonatan Schwenk’s Zoon before a performance by Caribou; Emmanuelle Lacombe’s The Golden Age playing in front of Patrick Watson.
2022 Rooftop Films Summer Series Programming
Feature Film Additions:
Fire of Love
Dir. Sara Dosa
Old American Can Factory
The extraordinary love story of intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died just as explosively as they lived — capturing the most spectacular imagery ever recorded of their greatest passion: volcanoes.
Courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films and NEON
SummerStage Short Film Collaborations:
The Right Words
Dir. Adrian Moyse Dullin
Brimming with energy, this ultra-contemporary tale of wit and gallantry centers on a schoolboy who tries his hand at courtly love.
Playing before Fete de la Musique: MC Solaar/ Bon Entendeur/ Hyphen Hyphen
Life Without Dreams
Dir. Jessica Bardsley
Life Without Dreams is set within the outer space of consciousness, where the surfaces of far out planetary bodies form the terrain for an exploration of the gradual disappearance of darkness, 24/7 capitalism, and insomnia.
Playing before Waxahatchee/ Swearin’/ Ohmme/ Delphine Blue (DJ)
My Heart Is My Only Country
Dir. Iva Gocheva
Structured over a remote therapy session between Elya, a young Azerbaijani woman, and her Polish therapist, the film explores the existential challenges of belonging to a country not one’s own.
Playing before Waxahatchee/ Swearin’/ Ohmme/ Delphine Blue (DJ)
Nalujuk Night
Dir. Jennie Williams
Run as fast as you can, the Nalujuit are here! Filmmaker Jennie Williams brings us the story of an exhilarating and sometimes terrifying Nunatsiavut tradition in Nalujuk Night.
Playing before Black Midi/ Sal Valentinetti/ Alisa Ali
A Goat’s Spell
Dir. Gerhard Funk
A psychedelic lullaby.
Playing before the Caribou/ Ela Minus/ Toribio
Zoon
Dir. Jonatan Schwenk
Small shimmering animals are in heat. A two-legged forest dweller encounters the lustful group. He and his companions snack on the little creatures and soon a feast begins.
Playing before the Caribou/ Ela Minus/ Toribio
Warsha
Dir. Dania Bdeir
A crane operator in Beirut volunteers to cover a shift on one of the most dangerous cranes, where he is able to find his freedom.
Playing before the Sons of Kemet/ Makaya McCraven/ L’Rain/ DJ Lindsey
The Golden Age
Dir. Emmanuelle Lacombe
By day, Sasha works at her family’s flea market shop. By night, she makes YouTube videos in hopes of becoming the next big thing.
Playing before Patrick Watson with the Attacca Quartet / Elisapie /La Force/ Alisa Ali
Short Film Programs
May 20
This is What We Mean By Short Films (Opening Night)
Green-Wood Cemetery
Hi Strangers, It’s Been Awhile. For 26 years, Rooftop Films has celebrated the coming of summer with the best short films of the last year. Come party with us at the cemetery!
Films:
One Euro to Jump Now
Dir. Noemi Sjoberg
Shouting “One euro to jump now” young divers in Porto face mass tourism.
I Scream, You Scream
Dir. Ashley Brandon
An ice cream man with a DJing past sets out to rekindle a dream and to reconnect with his son, creating a banger of a beat along the way.
The Hork
Dir. Nicole Stafford
In an alternate dimension, the stoic god of Power-Unrecognized waits for unrelenting Greed to come and consume her power.
Favorite Daughter
Dir. Dana Reilly
An intergenerational odd couple shelters-in-place in a lower Manhattan apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tennis Ball on His Day Off
Dir. Julian Glander
While leaving a voicemail to his grandma, a tennis ball ponders the passage of time and tries to find meaning and identity outside of his work.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
Dir. Don Josephus, Raphael Eblahan
Leaving her family behind, Lynn traverses the harrowing roads of the Cordilleran highlands to try her luck in the city as a country singer.
Hotel Kalura
Dir. Sophie Koko Gate
A woman walks into a hotel bar on the romantic island of Sicily, waiting to be lit.
June 4
Love is Short (Films): Romantic Short Films
The Roof of New Design High School
Short films about people who swiped right and the sexy, disastrous, hilarious and unexpected circumstances that ensued
Birds
dir. Katherine Propper
Moments in the lives of Austin teenagers amidst the heat of a Texas summer.
Shark
dir. Nash Edgerton
Jack is a well meaning, misunderstood prankster. But in his latest relationship he may have finally met his match.
Soft Animals
dir. Renee Zhan
Two ex-lovers cross paths at a train station.
CAI-BER
dir. Ahmed Abdelsalam
In a post-revolution Cairo, after numerous failed attempts to escape the status quo of her generation’s depression, Nour secretly arranges to flee her homeland.
Her Violet Kiss
dir. Bill Morrison
Her Violet Kiss re-contextualizes a deteriorating scene from a lost silent German film, Liebeshölle (translated as Love Hell), which was released as Pawns of Passion in the USA in 1929.
The Windshield Wiper
dir. Alberto Mielgo
Inside a cafe while smoking a whole pack of cigarettes, a man poses an ambitious question: What is Love?
The Sentence of Michael Thompson
dir. Kyle Thrash, Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Michael Thompson is the longest serving non-violent offender in Michigan history and this year he is finally up for clemency.
June 17
Cemetery Short Films
Green-Wood Cemetery
A bittersweet program about joy and sorrow, love and loss, celebration and mourning
Some Kind of Intimacy
Dir. Toby Bull
A filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.
Deerwoods Deathtrap
Dir. James P. Gannon
50 years ago Jack and Betty were hit by a train and survived. This is their story.
What Travelers Are Saying About Jornada del Muerto
Dir. Hope Tucker
Visitors and residents of the site of the first detonation of an atomic bomb contribute to the production of public memory as they offer reckonings and advice about making “the journey of the dead.”
A Goat’s Spell
Dir. Gerhard Funk
A psychedelic lullaby.
If I Go Will They Miss Me
Dir. Walter Thompson-Hernández
This film explores the relationship between a twelve year old boy’s imagination and the visceral realities that affect his community.
This is What a Smile Looks Like
Dir. Jack Dunphy
Filmmaker Jack Dunphy honors his late grandpa Larry by deconstructing a photograph of Larry holding him as a toddler.
Zoon
Dir. Jonatan Schwenk
Small shimmering animals are in heat. A two-legged forest dweller encounters the lustful group. He and his companions snack on the little creatures and soon a feast begins.
Crazy Mel’s Auto Emporium
Dir. Kevin Maher
Crazy Mel’s customer guarantee is like no other.
A Nice Little Film About A Nice Little Death
Dir. Julia Mendoza Friedman
A Nice Little Film About A Nice Little Death is a first-person love letter to history, inheritance, and the gawky clumsiness of grieving.
July 1
New York Non-Fiction
Green-Wood Cemetery
It’s Your City. Take a Look.
Takeover
Dir. Emma Francis-Snyder
A group of activists, the Young Lords, take over a decrepit hospital in the South Bronx launching a battle for their lives, their community, and healthcare for all.
Glen Eden
Dir. Rebecca Blandon
A short documentary about a man named Glen Eden Einbinder who exists as many things at once.
Stranger than Rotterdam with Sara Driver
Dir. Lewie Kloster, Noah Kloster
In 1982, the completion of Jim Jarmusch’s sophomore film, Stranger Than Paradise, hinged on producer Sara Driver’s willingness to smuggle one of the world’s rarest and most controversial films across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Originals
Dir. Cristina Costantini, Alfie Koetter
Matty “Square” Ruggiero and his childhood friends, the Union Street Boys, tell their story of what it was like to grow up in South Brooklyn, where money was tight but friendships were tighter.
Bob of the Park
Dir. Jake Sumner
Meet Robert “Birding Bob” DiCandido. Friendly Central Park bird walk leader to some, archnemesis to others.
Coming Home
Dir. Naim Naif, Margot Bowman
A collective of Palestinian-American dancers living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn connect to their community and homeland through Dabka.
July 9
Docs on the Edge
Brooklyn Army Terminal
Find light in darkness and meaning in struggle with this program of non-fiction films presented on the Brooklyn Army Terminal Pier.
Blue Room
Dir. Merete Mueller
In two prisons in the Pacific Northwest, incarcerated men and women watch nature videos on loop.
The Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults
Dir. and Producer Scott Calonico
Dialogue Dir. and Producer Harmon Leon
An investigation into a 1990s satanic cult training videotape for the police takes a turn for the weird when the filmmaker encounters real believers in satanic cults.
Shut Up and Paint
Dir. Alex Mallis, Titus Kapher
Painter Titus Kaphar looks to film as a medium in the face of an insatiable art market seeking to silence his activism.
In Flow of Words
Dir. Eliane Esther Bots
In Flow of Words follows the narratives of three interpreters of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
August 4
Dark Toons
Brooklyn Commons
Short animated films that will bring you to the strange and mysterious worlds.
Anxious Body
Dir. Yoriko Mizushir
Our body feels something and becomes anxious, and because it is anxious, it wants to feel something.
Easter Eggs
Dir. Nicolas Keppens
In an ordinary Belgian village, two bored teenagers are looking for something extraordinary.
Steakhouse
Dir. Špela Čadež
The steak has been marinating for a few days now. The pan is heated. Franc’s stomach is rumbling.
Dad is Gone
Dir. Pere Ginard
Dad is Gone. Dad is Ghost. Dad is Thing…spinning in his own skin.
Swallow the Universe
Dir. Luis Nieto
The grandiloquent blood-and-thunder saga of a young child lost in Manchuria’s deep jungle. His sudden presence creates anarchy in the fauna’s primitive world, which was, until then, perfectly organized.
Cucumbers (Ogurtsy)
Dir. Leonid Shmelkov
Simon is a successful photographer, but he develops a problem. He begins seeing cucumbers everywhere. He cannot go on as before, so what will he do?
Dissolution (Ontbinding)
Dir. Dries Bogaert
A society of pink creatures live on top of a tower in peace under one unwritten rule, “Wait your turn in line to the top”. But this all suddenly gets undermined when a citizen does not comply with this way of living.
Compositions for Understanding Relationships
Dir. David De La Fuente
“Compositions for Understanding Relationships” is a short animated film that takes the shape of a “love letter.”
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