It’s that point of yr once more! The annual Rooftop Films Summer Series is again, with IndieWire completely debuting the 2024 lineup.
This yr’s Summer Series will run from May 17 thru August 23, and can come with over 40 occasions, that includes new impartial characteristic motion pictures, brief movie systems, circle of relatives screenings, and reside performances. Programming highlights come with the 20 th anniversary of “Napoleon Dynamite,” the NYC premiere of “In a Violent Nature,” and an early screening of “War Game.”
Non-profit Rooftop Films yearly celebrates impartial motion pictures and filmmakers with one of the crucial international’s longest working and biggest out of doors fairs for indie movie. The screenings happen in out of doors venues throughout New York City’s 5 boroughs, with “In a Violent Nature” set to debut on Governors Island.
“The 2024 Summer Series isn’t just a celebration of groundbreaking new cinema,” Rooftop Films’ Executive Director Adnaan Wasey stated. “It’s also a catalyst for connecting communities and a critical platform for independent filmmakers. Each screening is crafted to be an unmissable event, and I’m excited to experience this lineup with audiences across New York City this summer!”
Rooftop Films can also be presenting particular sneak preview screenings with AMC this summer time, together with New York Premieres of “Orphan Black: Echoes” at Green-Wood Cemetery. Additionally, Rooftop’s unique spirit sponsor Ketel One Family Made Vodka will provide greater than 20 pre- and post-screening receptions during the summer time.
“Every film in our lineup is full of life and energy,” Maria Rhodes, Rooftop’s Senior Programmer, stated. “From — among many others — the glorious terror of ‘In a Violent Nature’ on Governors Island, to the irresistible funk sounds of Swamp Dogg in Sunset Park, we’ve curated a season full of unforgettable cinematic experiences for all attendees, and we couldn’t be more excited for our 28th summer.”
Check out the overall lineup under, with all synopses supplied by means of the competition.
Feature Film Programs
In a Violent Nature
2024 | Chris Nash | US, Canada | 94 minutes | New York Premiere
Saturday, May 18th @ Governors Island | Free with RSVP
When a locket is got rid of from a collapsed fireplace tower within the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by means of a horrific 60-year-old crime, his frame is resurrected and he turns into hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in at the crew of vacationing teenagers chargeable for the robbery and proceeds to methodically slaughter them separately in his project to get it again—along side somebody in his means. Courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder. Presented in partnership with Governors Island Arts. Opens completely in theaters on Friday May thirty first.
RSVPs Available Now
War Game
2024 | Tony Gerber & Jesse Moss | US | 94 minutes Thursday, May thirtieth @ The Old American Can Factory
An actual-life political mystery set on January 6, 2025, War Game imagines a nation-wide rebel by which contributors of america army defect to give a boost to the dropping Presidential candidate, whilst the profitable candidate and his advisors—performed by means of an all-star roster of senior officers from the ultimate 5 administrations—battle video games the disaster within the White House state of affairs room. They have 6 hours to avoid wasting democracy as the rustic teeters on the point of civil battle. Tickets Available Now
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
2023 | Tomás Gómez Bustillo | Argentina, US | 84 minutes
Tuesday, June 4th @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
In a tiny rural village in Argentina, Rita Lopez, a pious but insatiably aggressive lady, comes to a decision that staging a miracle may well be her price ticket to sainthood. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson as a part of the Chinese and Spanish Language Film Series.
RSVPs Available Now
Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
2024 | Isaac Gale & Ryan Olson | US | 97 minutes | New York Premiere
Thursday, July eleventh @ Industry City
Swamp Dogg, along housemates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty become his house into an inventive playground.
Tickets Available Now
Crossing
2024 | Levan Akin | Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia | 106 minutes Wednesday, July seventeenth @ Gansevoort Plaza, Meatpacking District | Free with RSVP Lia, a retired trainer residing in Georgia, made a promise to search out her lengthy misplaced niece Tekla. The seek takes her to Istanbul, an exquisite town that turns out stuffed with connections and chances. There she meets Evrim, a legal professional combating for trans rights, and Tekla begins to really feel nearer than ever… Courtesy of MUBI. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher and the Meatpacking BID.
RSVPs Available Now
The Night Visitors
2023 | Michael Gitlin | US | 72 minutes
Wednesday, July twenty fourth @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
The Night Visitors is an experimental documentary that intently examines moths as organisms, as aesthetic beings, and as carriers of which means. Screening offered as a part of the Alfred P. Sloan Science on Screen® collection. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson.
RSVPs Available Now
Daughters
2024 | Natalie Rae & Angela Patton | US | 107 minutes | New York Premiere
Thursday, August eighth @ Brooklyn Army Terminal | Free with RSVP
Four younger women get ready for a different Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as a part of a novel fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C., prison. Courtesy of Netflix.
RSVPs Available Now
Three Promises
2024 | Yousef Srouji | Palestine, US, Lebanon | 61 minutes
Wednesday, August 14th @ Brooklyn Commons Park | Free with RSVP
A mom motion pictures her circle of relatives’s existence whilst sheltering from Israel’s assaults right through the Second Intifada within the West Bank. Her son revisits the previous thru this pictures, handing over a heart-breaking portrait of the anguish of oldsters pressured to choose from their kids’s protection and the emotional upheaval of leaving house. Presented in Partnership with ArteEast’s Unpacking the Archive.
RSVPs Available Now
Look Into My Eyes
2024 | Lana Wilson | US | 108 minutes | New York Premiere
Friday, August sixteenth @ Green-Wood Cemetery
A bunch of New York City psychics habits deeply intimate readings for his or her purchasers, revealing a kaleidoscope of loneliness, connection, and therapeutic. Courtesy of A24.
Tickets Available Now
Luther: Never Too Much
2024 | Dawn Porter | US | 100 minutes
Saturday, September twenty first @ Brower Park | Free with RSVP
Using a wealth of hardly noticed archives, Luther Vandross tells his personal tale, with the help of his closest pals and musical collaborators, together with Mariah Carey, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson, and Roberta Flack. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Chi Ossé.
RSVPs Available Now
Seeking Mavis Beacon
2024 | Jazmin Renée Jones | US | 102 minutes | New York Premiere
Date and Venue To Be Announced
One of probably the most influential Black girls in generation is a figment of our collective creativeness. Mavis Beacon used to be invented by means of the Co-Founder of Myspace to promote the sector’s hottest typing tool, however the true lady she used to be modeled after disappeared in 1995. Seeking Mavis Beacon poses essential questions relating to anthropomorphization and the intake of marginalized our bodies within the tech business, whilst reimagining the legacy of a lacking historic determine.
Tickets Coming Soon
Short Film Programs
This is What We Mean by means of Short Films: Opening Night 2024
Friday, May seventeenth @ Green-Wood Cemetery
Kick off the summer time proper with one among Rooftop’s greatest and very best brief movie systems of the season! Tunnel thru existence with us, below the celebs at Green-Wood Cemetery, and shower in absurdist worlds made up of pennies, automobile washes, and persona assessments. Watch as siblings’ bonds get examined and artists confront their self doubts in imagined gardens. Go at the adventure with frazzled assistants and bubbly conspiracy theorists as they suck other people down the drain with them. Each piece will display you precisely what we imply by means of brief motion pictures.
Tickets Available Now
Cemetery Shorts
Saturday, June eighth @ Green-Wood Cemetery
When faced with dying, it’s tricky to grasp whether or not to appear ahead or suppose again—right here, you’ll be able to do each. Come for our annual amassing in Green-Wood Cemetery, the place in combination we’ll dive into circle of relatives drama at a funeral, carve into the which means of existence with a gravestone sculptor, and hang around with nuns who simply can’t wait to die. With this number of brief motion pictures, we’ll revel in how dying can carry heartbreak, humor, readability, and occasionally, not anything in any respect. Screening offered as a part of the Alfred P. Sloan Science on Screen® collection.
Tickets Available Now
Vidas Vibrantes: Shorts en Español
Wednesday, June twelfth @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
A program of our favourite world Spanish-language motion pictures highlighting group, circle of relatives, and identification. The shorts on this yr’s lineup discover the various complexities of those relationships, taking a darker outlook at the ties that bind. From hypnotic and unusually immersive portraits of position and reminiscence and an unconventional memorial to a misplaced pal, to rather twisted coming-of-age stories and a harrowing have a look at an abnormal summer time task, Vidas Vibrantes is a transportive find out about and party of Spanish-speaking communities all over the world. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson as a part of the Chinese and Spanish Language Film Series.
RSVPs Available Now
Queerly Beloved: Pride Shorts within the Park
Tuesday, June twenty fifth @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
Dearly cherished, our Queerly Beloved program makes its grand go back to Fort Greene Park! Come rejoice NYC PRIDE with a number of our favourite new brief motion pictures spotlighting the LGBTQIA+ group. This yr’s lineup boldly explores the intensity and breadth of queer other people, areas, and relationships in New York and past! Don’t leave out those whimsical portraits of house and our evolving understandings of circle of relatives; an unconventional musical concerning the pitfalls of informal relationship; awkward and intimate accounts of burgeoning sexuality; and an unflinching fever dream exploration of intercourse, loneliness, the web, and cat emojis. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson. RSVPs Available Now
Growing Pains: Coming-of-Age Stories
Friday, July twelfth @ Jackie Robinson Playground | Free with RSVP
Adulthood is difficult, however getting there will also be even tougher. This genre-spanning program showcases tales as deep and sundry as formative years itself. Whether saddling up for a rodeo festival, encountering ghosts in a brand new nation, or racing across the town, those motion pictures characteristic acquainted and interesting tales concerning the demanding situations of rising up—and the resilience of those that do it. Come rejoice adolescence thru all its headaches, within the town and past. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson.
RSVPs Available Now
New York Non-Fiction
Friday, July twenty sixth @ Green-Wood Cemetery
Get a more in-depth have a look at the folks and puts that make New York where we name house, thru thick and skinny. Escape the man-made horrors of Penn Station, discover one circle of relatives’s historical past in the course of the lens of baking, and clock in with an MTA employee—with no need to maintain educate delays. Join us for every other nostalgic commute across the boroughs, and revel in a portrait of probability encounters within the largest town on this planet.
Tickets Available Now
Rooftop Shots: Closing Night 2024
Friday, August twenty third @ Green-Wood Cemetery
Gather round, another time, as we rejoice the leading edge paintings of a few of Rooftop’s favourite brief filmmakers. As all the time, our Closing Night is filled with wistful reminiscences, longing moments, and devastating realizations. Reflect on launching rockets, unhappy love songs, existential commute, and bingo halls. Come to cry, keep to revel in one thing profound, and dance all of the feelings away with us in Green-Wood Cemetery. After all, all excellent issues will have to come to an finish…
Tickets Available Now
Dark Toons
Date and Venue To Be Announced | Free with RSVP
This yr’s Dark Toons program is a exhibit of the entire bizarre and twisted storytelling simplest animation can be offering. Cross into new worlds, each stunning and bleak, traversing the psychedelic hallucinations of a far away clinic affected person. Witness a fanciful nun’s reawakening, a love affair ripped to the bone, and spiral out with one guy’s cursed act of selflessness. These animated shorts are certain to wonder and rattle you—you gained’t wish to leave out them.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Genre in Translation
Date and Venue To Be Announced | Free with RSVP
Everyone recollects their first world movie—and the conclusion that one of the crucial maximum mind-blowing cinematic stories had been in a position to be came upon on the click on of a closed-captioning button. These six shorts from Asia to Latin America run the gamut of vampires, speaking fish, lady gangs, and simply undeniable stomach-churning pressure, leaving you breathless as your coronary heart just about skips forward of your studying comprehension. Thrilling and chilling, those style highwire acts by no means get misplaced in translation.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Love is Strange: Romance Shorts
Date and Venue To Be Announced | Free with RSVP
Experience the heartfelt tales in our annual program of romantic brief motion pictures, the place each and every narrative explores the essence of falling in love—or one thing that vaguely resembles it. Witness as girls react to the questionable dating recommendation just a guy may just give, a marinara-flavored porn parody, and a punk-rock swan music for the hunky development employee
simply outdoor our heroine’s window, sign up for us for a cinematic adventure celebrating the myriad varieties of deep, dazzling, and occasionally all-too-fleeting romantic connections.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Poetic Portraits
Date and Venue To Be Announced
Join us for a beguiling night time of docu-shorts that discover the depths of the human revel in. Wade into the waters of Toni Morrison’s prolific prose, glance in the back of the curtain of an emotional day at a clinical heart, and go through a week-long boot camp for women in Copenhagen. Dually immersive and difficult, let your self fall out and in of the worlds depicted by means of those exceptionally poetic filmmakers.
Tickets Coming Soon
Short Films, Big City
Date and Venue To Be Announced | Free with RSVP
When desirous about town we maximum instances love, occasionally hate, everybody has a unique tale to inform. Come for motion pictures that to find our communities in surprising moments—whether or not it’s thru pick-pocketing locals, a textual bond between neighbors, or a candy-colored haven for artists. Fact or fiction, those motion pictures brilliantly seize the ever-evolving ecosystem this is New York.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Trapped: Mind-Altering Shorts
Date and Venue To Be Announced
Trapped is again for every other dose of staggering filmic insanity! Microdose 8 long term cult classics that includes lightyears-spanning flatulence, mystical MLMs, a society of enslaved hamsters, and all means of uncharted psychological pathologies. Creepy dreamers and fame-seekers converge in a maelstrom of dually uproarious and darkish delusions. Seek convenience in discomfort and keep open to all chances, and possibly you’ll make it out in a single headspace.
Tickets Coming Soon
Special Events
AMC NETWORKS PRESENTS
Orphan Black: Echoes — Special NY Premiere Screening
2024 | 47 minutes
Tuesday, June 11 @ Green-Wood Cemetery | Free with RSVP
Set within the close to long term, Orphan Black: Echoes takes a deep dive into the exploration of the clinical manipulation of human life. It follows a bunch of girls as they weave their means into each and every different’s lives and embark on an exhilarating adventure, unraveling the thriller in their identification and uncovering a wrenching tale of affection and betrayal. Presented in partnership with AMC Networks.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Starring and government produced by means of Krysten Ritter (Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Love and Death), the ten-episode, highly-anticipated Orphan Black: Echoes premieres Sunday, June 23 at 10pm ET/PT on AMC, AMC+ and BBC AMERICA.
SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
This summer time, Rooftop Films will provide 4 cherished and acclaimed titles from the 30-year historical past of Searchlight Pictures: 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite at the roof of New Design High School within the Lower East Side, a screening of the 2021 Academy Award-winning documentary Summer of Soul in Crown Heights’ Brower Park, 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine at a to-be-announced venue, and 1998’s Slums of Beverly Hills at Tompkins Square Park.
Napoleon Dynamite: twentieth Anniversary Celebration
2004 | Jared Hess | US | 96 minutes
Friday, May 24 @ New Design High School | Free with RSVP
Searchlight Pictures and Rooftop Films provide a different twentieth anniversary party of the cult vintage debut by means of Jared Hess atop the roof of an NYC highschool. From the agricultural the city of Preston, Idaho, comes Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder). With a purple ‘fro, his moon boots, and unlawful executive ninja strikes, he’s a brand new roughly hero. When his pal Pedro (Efren Ramirez) comes to a decision to run for sophistication president, it’s Napoleon to the rescue to assist him overcome adversity. Presented as a part of Searchlight Pictures thirtieth Anniversary Celebration. RSVPs Available Now
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
2021 | Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson | US | 118 minutes
Saturday, June 15 @ Brower Park | Free with RSVP
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson items a formidable and transporting documentary—section track movie, section historic document created round an epic tournament that celebrated Black historical past, tradition and model. Over the process six weeks in the summertime of 1969, only one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival used to be filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). Winner of the 2021 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Summer of Soul shines a mild at the significance of historical past to our non secular well-being and stands as a testomony to the therapeutic energy of track right through instances of unrest, each previous and provide. Presented as a part of Searchlight Pictures thirtieth Anniversary Celebration, in partnership with New York City Council Member Chi Ossé.
RSVPs Available Now
Little Miss Sunshine
2006 | Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris | US | 101 minutes
Date and Venue To Be Announced | Free with RSVP
Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Paul Dano and a riotously humorous Alan
Arkin superstar on this star-studded quick indie vintage concerning the Hoovers, a mismatched circle of relatives who pile into their VW Bus to embark on a extremely eventful cross-country commute, decided to get their younger daughter into the finals of a good looks festival. Presented as a part of Searchlight Pictures thirtieth Anniversary Celebration.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Slums of Beverly Hills
1998 | Tamara Jenkins | US | 91 minutes
Date To Be Announced @ Tompkins Square Park | Free with RSVP
Natasha Lyonne provides a star-making efficiency on this hilarious and too-relatable cult vintage indie a few lower-middle-class youngster suffering to manage residing along with her neurotic circle of relatives of nomads at the outskirts of Beverly Hills. Presented as a part of Searchlight Pictures thirtieth Anniversary Celebration.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Community Repertory Screenings
July Rhapsody
2002 | Ann Hui | Hong Kong | 103 minutes | New 4K Restoration Tuesday, May 14th @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
Brimming with unspeakable serene good looks, July Rhapsody by means of Hong Kong’s director Ann Hui (A Simple Life) and scriptwriter Ivy Ho (Comrades: Almost a Love Story) is a profound and soothing story about how one paddles thru existence’s chaos as many apparently everlasting inspiration resources of instances, just like the Yangtze river, quietly fade away. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson as a part of the Chinese and Spanish Language Film Series. Weekly theatrical run begins on July nineteenth at Film Forum.
RSVPs Available Now
Happy Together
1997 | Wong Kar Wai | Hong Kong | 96 minutes
Tuesday, May twenty first @ Fort Greene Park | Free with RSVP
A pair takes a commute to Argentina on the lookout for a brand new starting, however as an alternative reveals themselves drifting even additional aside. Presented in partnership with the Fort Greene Park Conservancy and NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson as a part of the Chinese and Spanish Language Film Series.
RSVPs Available Now
Robot Dreams
2023 | Pablo Berger | Spain, France | 102 minutes
Wednesday, May twenty second @ Corona Golf Playground | Free with RSVP
Dog lives in Manhattan and he’s bored with being on my own. One day he comes to a decision to construct himself a robotic, a spouse. Their friendship blossoms, till they turn into inseparable, to the rhythm of 80’s NYC. One summer time night time, Dog, with nice disappointment, is pressured to desert Robot on the seashore. Will they ever meet once more? Courtesy of NEON. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Francisco Moya.
RSVPs Available Now
One Hand Don’t Clap
1991 | Kavery Dutta Kaul | US | 92 minutes
Tuesday, June eleventh @ Louis Armstrong House Museum | Free with RSVP
One Hand Don’t Clap captures the colourful tale of calypso and the emergence of soca, in the course of the eyes of 2 mythical artists, Lord Kitchener, the Grandmaster of the track and Calypso Rose, the primary lady to wreck thru in a historically male area. Forging onscreen the connections between American communities and the place households come from, the documentary leads audiences from New York recording research to the superior magic of Carnival in Trinidad & Tobago. Courtesy of Kino Lorber. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Francisco Moya.
RSVPs Available Now
Roll Bounce
2005 | Malcolm D. Lee | US | 112 minutes
Tuesday, August sixth @ Jackie Robinson Playground | Free with RSVP
Nineteen Seventies roller-skate jams gasoline this coming-of-age comedy as a bunch of younger pals head over to the Sweetwater Roller Rink, the place they to find their modest skills are – in the beginning – no festival for the trick skaters who rule the rink. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson.
RSVPs Coming Soon
Bob Marley: One Love
2024 | Reinaldo Marcus Green | US | 107 minutes Saturday, August seventeenth @ Brower Park | Free with RSVP
Bob Marley: One Love celebrates the existence and track of an icon who impressed generations thru his message of affection and solidarity. On the large display for the primary time, uncover Bob’s robust tale of overcoming adversity and the adventure in the back of his progressive track. Presented in partnership with New York City Council Member Chi Ossé.
RSVPs Available Now