When Rooftop Films began 20 summers ago on the roof of a tenement building in the Lower East Side it was a single evening of short films. 19 years later the organization has grown tremendously— hosting over 50 extraordinary events every summer, with live music and after-parties all across NYC— but they still strive to champion emerging in the short film community, and still believe that the medium is ripe for experimentation and opportunity. This season, Rooftop Films will present over 130 short films in over 13 programs, each curated with complementary and riveting themes. 

Rooftop Films kicks off its summer on Friday, May 20th at The Bushwick Generator, in Brooklyn with “This Is What We Mean By Short Films,” a selection of dynamic shorts that encapsulates the adventurous spirit of the organization, and the untapped potential of the summer. The program will showcase some of the best, most innovative short films by independent filmmakers from around the world, including four parts of Black Eye Symphony, a comedic suite by Steve Collins, who has been screening films at Rooftop since their very first show 20 summers ago.

“Climbing to a rooftop to watch movies is always a daring escapade, and the most daring films are often shorts,” says Mark Elijah Rosenberg, founder and Artistic Director of Rooftop Films. “This year’s lineup of shorts exhibits some of the most intrepid and astonishing cinema from around the world, with radical documentaries, captivating fiction, stunning animation, and bold new forms that will incite and inspire for years to come.”

Throughout the summer, Rooftop Films will present a number of carefully curated programs, each with a specific focus or theme. Highlights of the 20th Summer Series include three nights of documentaries (including Rooftop’s signature New York Non-Fiction program), a selection of shorts about unlikely romances, selected highlights from the Sundance Film Festival and the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), two programs of animated short films, and a program of meditative and experimental short installations at Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York.

Tickets for short film programs and feature films are on sale at www.rooftopfilms.com.

Rooftop Films Short Film Programs
* Rooftop Alumni

Friday, May 20, 2016
THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN BY SHORT FILMS
Celebrate our 20th festival with dark, oddball comedies & exhilarating documentary experiences.
THE FILMS: Stations, Roddy Hyduk | The Position (Black Eye Symphony pt. 1), Steve Collins* | METUBE 2 - AUGUST SINGS CARMINA BURANA, Daniel Moshel | Avant Garde (Black Eye Symphony pt. 3), Steve Collins* | Temporary Color, John Wilson* | Thunder P. (Black Eye Symphony pt. 4), Steve Collins* | The Hanging, Geoffrey Feinberg | Mining Poems or Odes, Callum Rice | An Ecstatic Experience, Ja’Tovia Gary |Bad at Dancing, Joanna Arnow* | Dr. Meertz (Black Eye Symphony pt. 5), Steve Collins* | Thunder Road, Jim Cummings*. 
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/this-is-what-we-mean-by-short-films-7/

Friday, June 3, 2016
IS THIS LOVE? ROMANTIC SHORT FILMS
Strangely-funny, loving, sexy, romantic short films that are sure to turn you on (to something).
FILMS: The Darkest Truth About Love, Hannah Jacobs* | PARTNERS, Joey Ally | Audition, Lovisa Sirén* |Girls & Boys, Ninja Thyberg* | LOVE, Réka Bucsi* | Dolphin Lover, Kareem Tabsch | A Reasonable Request, Andrew Laurich | Gwilliam, Brian Lonano.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/is-this-love-romantic-short-films/

Thursday, June 9, 2016
TRAPPED: UNCANNY SHORT FILMS 
Shorts about glitches in reality, monsters under the bed and things lost in the edits of life.
FILMS: Dirt, Darius Monroe* | Discontinuity, Lori Felker | The Wraith (Maran), Asa Ersmark | The House is Innocent, Nick Coles | Love, Gina, Nicole Emanuele | Ham Heads, Efren Hernandez* | Blood Below the Skin,Jennifer Reeder*.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/trapped-uncanny-short-films/

Friday, June 10, 2016
SUNDANCE SHORT FILMS
Highlights from Sundance 2016 include these wild, weird and wonderful short films.
FILMS: Thunder Road, Jim Cummings* | Maman(s), Maïmouna Doucouré | Her Friend Adam, Ben Petrie |Bacon & God’s Wrath, Sol Friedman* | Peacock, Ondřej Hudeček | The Procedure, Calvin Reeder* | Edmond, Nina Gantz.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/sundance-short-films

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Wednesday, June 15, 2016
TIES THAT BIND: SHORT FILMS ABOUT FAMILIES
Family, for better and for worse.
FILMS: A Conversation With My Black Son, Geeta Gandbhir and Perri Peltz* | Small Talk, Hilary Campbell |Mother Knows Best, Mikael Bundsen | These C*cksucking Tears, Dan Taberski | Pink Boy, Eric Rockey |Flower of a Thousand Colours, Karen Vazquez-Guadarrama.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/ties-that-bind-short-films-about-families

Friday, June 24, 2016
DANGEROUS DOCS
Thrilling and unsettling and frighteningly true.
FILMS: TBA
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/dangerous-docs-1     

Thursday, July 7, 2016
DARK TOONS
These bold animations explore uncomfortable corners, dark spaces, and places we fear.
FILMS: Stems, Ainslie Henderson | Manoman, Simon Cartwright | Choban, Matija Pisacic | Sunday Lunch, Celine Devaux | Lazy Daze, Brian Smee* | Sport in the Land of Plenty, Matt Reynolds* | Forgotten Reasons, Peter Larsson* | Dokument, Marcin Podolec | Shining Star of Losers Everywhere, Mickey Duzyj | On Melancholy, Hannah Jacobs*.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/dark-toons-3

Friday, July 8, 2016
NEW YORK NON-FICTION
It's your city. Take a look.
FILMS: We Live This, James Burns*| Tiger Hood, Christopher Marks | Rothman, Nader Sadre | IDAC Casimir Nozkowski* | Dangerous Curves, Merete Mueller | The Tricks List, Brian Bolster* | How to Act on Reality TV, John Wilson*.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/new-york-nonfiction-4

Thursday, July 21, 2016
DUTCH SHORT FILMS FROM IDFA
Ground-breaking & creative shorts highlight films from IDFA, the world’s largest doc fest.
FILMS: Ninnoc, Nikki Padiddar | Calling Ukraine, Jean Cournet | My Silicone Love, Sophie Dros | Dereviled, Davis Haines | The Sniper of Kobani, Reber Dosky.
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/dutch-short-films-from-idfa

Friday, July 29, 2016
ANIMATION BLOCK PARTY
Experience some of the year’s best animated shorts at the incomparable Animation Block Party!
FILMS AND INFO TBA

Saturday, August 13, 2016
SHORT FILMS AT STORM KING ART CENTER

A special night of short films amidst the sculptures and meadows of the Storm King Art Center.
FILMS AND INFO TBA

Saturday, August 20, 2016
ROOFTOP SHOTS: CLOSING NIGHT
CLOSING NIGHT! Short films-sweet, somber, melancholic and funny-about things we leave behind.
FILMS: Glove, Alexa Hass and Bernardo Britto* | And Nothing Happened, Naima Ramos-Chapman | 93, Laura Stewart | Home, Daniel Mulloy* | The Great Theatre, Slawomir Batyra | Dead Ringer, Dana O’Keefe* |Hopptornet (Ten Meter Tower), Maximilien Van Aertryck & Axel Danielson. 
INFO: http://rooftopfilms.com/2016/schedule/rooftop-shots-closing-night-1/

Short Films in Programs to be Announced

A DAY AT SCHOOL (Victor Ghizaru | Burkina Faso/Canada | 7’)
Winding around the dusty, mirage-soaked roads of Burkina Faso on their donkey carts, two young brothers transport soil.

THE BLOOP (Cara Cusumano | USA | 7’)
An impressionistic docu-mystery exploring the origins of an unidentified deep-sea sound.

GOOD WHITE PEOPLE (Jarrod Welling-Cann & Erick Stoll | USA | 6’)
In a gentrifying neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, white amusement threatens black livelihood.

JUNGLE (Asantewaa Prempeh | USA | 13’)
The lines between trust, betrayal, and forgiveness are intertwined for two Senegalese vendors as they try to make a living on the streets of New York City.

MOBILIZE (Caroline Monnet | Canada | 4’)
An exhilarating journey from the far north to the urban south, capturing the perpetual negotiation between the traditional and the modern by a people moving ever forward.

MY ALEPPO (Melissa Langer | USA | 18’)
After fleeing the Syrian civil war, a family communicates with the home front via Skype, watching Aleppo disintegrate and their loved ones change.

NOTHING HUMAN (Tom Rosenberg* | USA | 17’)
Private investigator Louie Akin relates his experience reconstructing the 2009 mass shootings at Fort Hood and reflects on the nature of violence.

PICKLE (Amy Nicholson | USA | 16’)
Pickle is an ode to man’s capacity to care for all creatures throughout their sometimes greatly protracted existence until their occasionally sudden and unfortunate deaths.

RED FOLDER (Ben Kallam | USA | 10’)
High school student Joseph sets out to find his teacher’s red folder, only to discover the unsettling implications of his task.

RIOT (Nathan Silver | USA | 4’)
Inspired by the Los Angeles riots, a power hungry nine-year-old tries his hand at filmmaking.

SPEAKING IS DIFFICULT (AJ Schnack | USA | 14’)
Speaking is Difficult tells a cumulative history that is both unbearable and inevitable.

SUBURBAN KING/TOP-GIRL (Aakash Bhatia | India | 7’)
Fear has a form, fame has a form.

TERRITORY (Eleanor Mortimer | UK | 17’)
In Gibraltar, tensions flare when unruly monkeys intrude upon the domesticated lifestyle that humans have built up around them.

UZU (Gaspard Kuentz* | Japan | 28’)
The Dogo Autumn Festival is one of the most violent religious festivals celebrated in Japan. A thrilling ride into its violence and a penetrating glance on its meaning.