Rooftop Films Presents Three Free Screenings @Brookfield Place

Rooftop Films and Arts Brookfield will be co-presenting three free screenings on the Waterfront Plaza at Brookfield Place (formerly World Financial Center). The screenings will take place July 30th, 31stand August 1st, with live musical performances preceding each of the films.

On Thursday, July 30th, Animation Block Party kicks off their 12th annual festival with a collection of short films. Animation Block Party is the premier animation festival of the East Coast, drawing in huge crowds to see the world’s best new animated films. Each year, the opening night of the festival is presented outdoors in partnership with Rooftop Films. This year’s screening will feature world-renowned and independent short films along with special clips from Dreamworks TV.

On Friday, July 31st, Rooftop Films will present a special sneak preview of the environmental exposé Racing Extinction, directed by the Academy Award®-winning filmmakers of The Cove. The film, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, follows a team of artists and activists that employ their unique skills and talents to expose the hidden world of extinction with never-before-seen images. Racing Extinction will be broadcast worldwide in 220 countries and territories on Discovery Channel later this year.

The series will conclude on Saturday, August 1st, with a screening of Academy Award® winner Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense. The 1984 hit follows The Talking Heads during their titular three-day concert gig at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Learn about David Byrne’s big suit along the scenic Hudson River.

“Arts Brookfield has been tremendously supportive of Rooftop Films these past three years, collaborating with us for several very popular and memorable events with us,” said Dan Nuxoll, Program Director of Rooftop Films. “Brookfield Place has been a beautiful venue for our screenings these last few years, and we are thrilled to be co-presenting another batch of exciting, independent films with them.” 

All events are free and open to the public. Images and interviews available upon request.

Film Details:

Venue: Waterfront Plaza at Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey Street, Financial District, Manhattan 

Thursday, July 30

ANIMATION BLOCK PARTY (SHORT FILMS) 

Experience some of the year's best animated shorts at the incomparable Animation Block Party!

THE FILMS: Almost There (Julia Glassman); Meanwhile (Stephen McNally);Beach Flags (Sarah Saidan); Aubade (Mauro Carraro); Little Doorman (Matt Marblo); Stella Nova (Ted Wiggin); Positronic (Ryan Mauskopf); Itch (Su-An Ng);Harvey Beaks (C.H. Greenblatt); and sneak peaks from Dreamworks TV.

More Info: http://rooftopfilms.com/2015/schedule/animation-block-party-short-films-2/ 

Friday, July 31

RACING EXTINCTION (Louie Psihoyos)

Armed with a state-of-the-art cameras, and profound purpose, the Academy Award® winning Filmmakers of The Cove, bring you the latest environmental exposé. Follow a team of artists and activists that employ their unique skills and talents to expose the hidden world of extinction with never-before-seen images that will change the way we see the planet. Photographers, divers, and undercover agents reveal the two worlds that drive extinction across the globe, potentially resulting in the loss of half of all species; the international wildlife trade, and the other surrounds us, hiding in plain sight — a world that the oil and gas companies don’t want the rest of us to see. Using state-of-the-art technology, the Racing Extinction team exposes these two worlds in an inspiring affirmation to preserve life as we know it. Presented in partnership with Discovery Channel and Arts Brookfield. Racing Extinction will be seen in its entirety as a worldwide broadcast on Discovery Channel in 220 countries and territories on the same day at the end of the year. Visit www.racingextinction.com for broadcast dates and more information.

More Info: http://rooftopfilms.com/2015/schedule/racing-extinction/ 

Saturday, August 1

STOP MAKING SENSE (Jonathan Demme)

Academy Award® winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme's first feature-length documentary follows the Talking Heads during a three-day concert gig at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. What emerges on screen says as much about director Demme's taste and sensitivity as it does about the group and its visionary leader Byrne. 

More Info: http://rooftopfilms.com/2015/schedule/stop-making-sense/

For more information and updates please visit their website:

www.rooftopfilms.com.

FESTIVAL CELEBRATING LEGENDARY ACTOR'S GREATEST ROLES AT FILM FORUM, AUGUST 7-11

A five-day, ten-film tribute to MARLON BRANDO (1924-2004), featuring his most iconic performances, from On the Waterfront toThe Godfather, will run at Film Forum from Friday, August 7 through Tuesday, August 11.

The series kicks off on Friday, August 7 with a superb 4K restoration of Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront, with Brando in his Oscar-winning role as ex-boxer/longshoreman Terry Malloy. Kazan said, "If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don't know what it is."

The series includes many of Brando’s greatest films, including a 4K restoration of Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (only Brando’s second film, and first collaboration with the director), Kazan’s biopic of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Viva Zapata!, in a new restoration, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar, Laslo Benedek’s seminal biker movie The Wild One, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Gillo Pontecorvo’s rarely-seen Burn!, the x-rated version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, Coppola’sApocalypse Now, and Andrew Bergman’s meta comedy The Freshman, with Brando as a character who’s very similar to a certain other ionic role.

BRANDO is presented in conjunction with Film Forum’s premieres screen, which will screen new documentary Listen to me Marlon from July 29-August 11.

Select screeners available, please contact rachel@filmforum.org.
Public Screening Schedule (all separate admissions)
AUGUST 7 FRI
ON THE WATERFRONT (1954, Elia Kazan) 4K DCP Restoration
12:30, 5:10, 7:30
THE WILD ONE (1953, Laslo Benedek) DCP
2:45 

LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1973, Bernardo Bertolucci) 35mm

9:45 ONLY
AUGUST 8 SAT
THE GODFATHER (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) DCP
1:00, 6:45
THE FRESHMAN (1990, Andrew Bergman) 35mm
4:30
THE WILD ONE (1953, Laslo Benedek) DCP
10:20
AUGUST 9 SUN
VIVA ZAPATA! (1952, Elia Kazan) 4K DCP restoration
12:30
BURN! (1969, Gillo Pontecorvo) 35mm
2:50
JULIUS CAESAR (1953, Joseph L. Mankiewicz) 35mm
5:30
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) DCP
8:00
AUGUST 10 MON
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951, Elia Kazan) 4K DCP
12:30, 5:15, 7:35, 9:55
VIVA ZAPATA! (1952, Elia Kazan) New DCP Restoration
3:00
AUGUST 11 TUES
BURN! (1969, Gillo Pontecorvo) 35mm
12:30
JULIUS CAESAR (1953, Joseph L. Mankiewicz) 35mm
3:30
VIVA ZAPATA! (1952, Elia Kazan) New DCP Restoration
6:10
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) DCP
8:30

FSLC & Jaeger-LeCoultre announce Athina Rachel Tsangari as 2015 Filmmaker in Residence

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Jaeger-LeCoultre announced the selection of writer and director Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg, 2011 New Directors/New Films) as their 2015 Filmmaker in Residence, the third annual initiative and partnership between the two  organizations. Previous participants include award-winning directors Lisandro Alonso (Jauja) and Andrea Arnold (Red Road).

Lesli Klainberg, Executive Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center said: “We are very excited to welcome Athina Tsangari as the third annual Filmmaker in Residence during the 53rd New York Film Festival. Athina is a dynamic and fearless filmmaker, and we are thrilled to provide her with the space and time to develop new work while connecting her with a vibrant New York film community. Athina has already had a remarkable career, and we are so excited to see what she does next.”

“I feel greatly honored to be hosted as the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Filmmaker in Residence this year,” said Tsangari. “I am looking forward to working on my new script, part of which is set in New York City, and to drawing inspiration from the city itself, camaraderie from its essential film community, and stimulation from the Film Society’s invigorating programming. It is always an invaluable gift when Xenia—the goddess of hospitality—and cinema join their graces and forces.”

During her residency in New York, Tsangari will be working on a screwball action-thriller called White Knuckles that centers on two criminal sisters (a burglar and a bookkeeper) dealing with “VAT fraud, amour fou, architectural infiltration, and electrically amplified fistfighting.” Her newest feature, Chevalier, is a buddy comedy that takes place on a luxury yacht astray on the Aegean Sea and will have its world premiere in August at the Locarno l Film Festival.

Athina Rachel Tsangari holds a BA in Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Drama from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. After graduation, she moved to Austin to study film directing. Her introduction to cinema came by a happy accident, with a small role in Richard Linklater’s seminal 1991 film Slacker, and her relationship with Linklater continued when she served as co-producer on Before Midnight (2013), in which she also appeared as Ariadni. Her first short, Fit, was a finalist at the Student Academy Awards. Her MFA thesis feature at the University of Texas at Austin, The Slow Business of Going (2001), a lo-fi sci-fi road movie starring Lizzie Martinez, was shot with a skeleton crew in hotel rooms in nine cities around the world. The 2002 Village Voice Critics’ Poll listed it as one of the year’s “best first films,” and it also garnered several directing awards and now belongs in MoMA’s permanent film collection. 

Her sophomore feature, Attenberg (2010), premiered in the main competition of the Venice Film Festival, where its lead Ariane Labed won the Coppa Volpi Award for Best Actress, and then went on to win several best film/directing awards at festivals worldwide. It was Greece’s Best Foreign Language Film submission for the 2012 Academy Awards, and a runner-up for the LUX Prize for Best European film. The Capsule(2012), made in collaboration with Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska and commissioned by the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art as both a film and an installation, premiered at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, followed by the Locarno, Toronto, and Sundance film festivals to critical acclaim. The script for her sci-fi “screwball tragedy” Duncharon (co-written with her longtime collaborator and Haos Film partner Matt Johnson) was awarded the "ARTE France Cinéma" Award for best European project in development, at Rotterdam IFF’s CineMart in 2012. 

The Filmmaker in Residence program was launched in 2013 by Jaeger-LeCoultre and the Film Society of Lincoln Center as an annual initiative designed to support filmmakers at an early stage in the creative process against the backdrop of New York City and the New York Film Festival (NYFF). 

The 2013 Filmmaker in Residence, Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights, Fish Tank), utilized her residency to develop the script and work on pre-production for first feature project shot in the United States,American Honey starring Shia LaBeouf, which was introduced to buyers at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

The 2014 Filmmaker in Residence, Lisandro Alonso (Jauja, Liverpool, Fantasma, Los Muertos) is working on development for an untitled project that began during his residency at FSLC and is currently meeting with producers in South America, aiming to shoot soon in the United States. 


***The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, RowNYC, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

***Support for the New York Film Festival is also generously provided by Jaeger-LeCoultre, Fiji Water, and WNET New York Public Media.

For more information, please visit:

www.filmlinc.com, @filmlinc

http://bit.ly/JLCCinema