Seventeen Years of Rooftop Films

Art

Rooftop Films launches 17th season with music, food and films, including New York love story Frances Ha

Perpetually spoiled by thrills of Manhattan nightlife, most New Yorkers would rather not spend their weekend going back to high school. For the opening weekend of Rooftop Films, however, that’s precisely where we were lured, arriving atop the Lower East Side’s New Design High School with a jovial, pre-prom like spirit. It was a five-flight climb to the sprawling, graffiti-decorated space, where we were met by an intoxicating mix of fresh air and cinema—a combination that Rooftop Films founder and artistic director Mark Elijah Rosenberg has been getting people hooked on for 17 years.

“The first venue was on my roof,” Rosenberg recalls of the roving series’ early days. “A six-story walk-up on 14th Street and First Avenue.” It was 1997 and the crowd of a few hundred showed up to watch indie flicks on a giant white sheet, screened from Rosenberg’s old 16MM projector. Tonight, close to 550 people are at New Design High School, braving a threat of rain that never comes.

"The main goal was always to create something that felt inclusive and that people felt comfortable being at, says Nuxoll. Like it was a party they were invited to."

Before attendees take their seats, they nosh on popcorn and pizza while Instagramming the cityscape and the movie screen and each other. Brooklyn electro-soul duo Denitia and Sene plays a set of live music as the rows fill, and shortly after they exit stage left, the lights are lowered.

“These are consistently some of the best New York nights we have,” says audience member Nam, 30, adding that he and his girlfriend became regulars at the series last season. This particular New York night is dedicated to short films, which Rooftop traditionally screens opening weekend. Among the eight pictures in the lineup is The Captain, in which a drunken pilot flees the scene of his own crash, and an animated tale of the world’s end titled The Event. Slomo, a documentary about a doctor-turned-rollerblading aficionado, elicits the night’s loudest laughs.

Moviegoers watch short films projected at Open Road Rooftop on the Lower East Side.

On the program, 25-year-old Nellie Kluz’s Gold Party is marked with an asterisk, indicating that her glimpse into the business of exchanging gold for cash was partially financed through a Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grant. A dollar from each event ticket sold goes towards these grants, which are awarded annually to filmmakers whose work the nonprofit has screened in the past. Past recipients include Ben Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild and Shaka Kings’ Newlyweeds, which will be screened on July 18.

Kluz, who lives in Boston and had her film Young Bird Season featured in 2011, made the trip to New York for opening weekend. “They draw a really broad audience from all over New York,” she says of Rooftop’s screenings, noting that few film festivals offer such diversity. “It’s an event.”

That takeaway is what Rosenberg and program director Dan Nuxoll have always gone for. The two New York City natives, both 38, met as Vassar undergrads, and Nuxoll was present for that first-ever screening on his buddy’s roof all those years ago. Nuxoll became increasingly involved in curating the films, and helped secure the organization’s second location on top of an old Bushwick warehouse building that was converted into lofts. By 2003 Rooftop Films was incorporated and both Rosenberg and Nuxoll turned their open-air experiences into full-time jobs.

“The main goal was always to create something that felt inclusive and that people felt comfortable being at,” says Nuxoll. “Like it was a party they were invited to.” To that end, they’ve secured locations from the Long Island City to Coney Island, attracting filmgoers from across all boroughs. “We want to make each event unique and memorable in a way that’s different from seeing a movie in a movie theater,” Rosenberg adds. In the past, props have outfitted venues to coincide with a film’s theme. Four live bands will fete the music documentary Brasslands on July 13, and on August 1, the maritime documentary Exhibition to the End of the World will be screened on a boat in Red Hook.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig respond to audience questions after the screening of their film, “Frances Ha”

The forecast initially relegates night two of opening weekend to a less inventive locale: the high school’s auditorium. Still, many came to see Noah Baumbauch and Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha, and Austin-based band Brazos plays song after song with enthusiasm. The crowd matches it when we we’re told to make our way to the roof.

"I can’t imagine a more perfect place to show this movie, said Greta Gerwig. This is where it should be. "

There, Frances Ha played out just blocks away from where many of its scenes were shot. While not everyone in the audience could relate to how Gerwig’s character lived her fumbling, confusing and at times comedic life, they could relate to where she lived it. “The highlight was watching this gorgeous film and then glancing to the left of the screen and seeing the Empire State Building,” first-time attendee Lindsey Anthony-Bacchione later reflected. “I had one of those ‘I love this city’ moments.”

During Baumbach and Gerwig’s post-show Q&A, the leading lady and co-writer suggested that the screening was a homecoming of sorts, sharing that she’d been coming to Rooftop Films since she moved to New York over 10 years ago. “I can’t imagine a more perfect place to show this movie,” said Gerwig. “This is where it should be.”

Screening films by directors like Baumbach before they hit theatres was not something Nuxoll and Rosenberg anticipated. “I don’t think even in our wildest dreams we imagined that [Rooftop Films] might be something this big,” Nuxoll says. Rosenberg agrees. “When I first started, I didn’t expect to create an organization that would last for 17 years, or for forever,” he says. “It was just a fun thing to do.” Based on the turnout for the series’ opening weekend, it looks like it still is.