Rooftop Films: Home Movies (Event Over)

Sat., August 2, 2008

Home Movies
Fragile memories, preserved (and distorted) in motion pictures. Fun, fascinating, personal and profound.

Venue: On the lawn along the Gowanus Canal at The Yard
Address: 400 Carroll Street (btw. Bond / Nevins - Carroll Gardens)
Directions: F / G to Carroll at Smith, walk 3 blocks east (downhill) on Carroll or M / R to Union, walk 2 blocks south to a left on Carroll
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held indoors nearby at The Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd Street (corner of 3rd Avenue)
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix Presents Live Music by The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
9:00PM: Films
11:00PM – 12:30AM: Reception including free wine courtesy of Brooklyn Oenology
Tickets: $9 at the door or online at http://going.com

Preview: See short films from this and other programs at www.IFC.com
Presented in partnership with: IFC.com, New York magazine, Brooklyn Oenology, MeanRed Productions and The Yard

The first 100 in attendance will receive a FREE copy of Jim Munroe's book, An Opening of Unspeakable Evil, a novel about a demonic ritual that catches on with the kids as peformance art. The book even includes a scene that features a Rooftop Films show! Read more about it here

PROGRAM NOTES:
Every year Rooftop hosts a program of Home Movies—discovering the forgotten, unmediated moments of people’s lives, unfiltered and as they live them. The films reveal textures, patterns, feelings that might go unnoticed, fleeting incidents that would otherwise pass without thought, but when captured on film or video provide an insight into the lives captured, or those recording.

This year’s program is slightly different, in that it’s less about the immediate moment than about the reflected moment—less web cam and more video diary. We use diaries to record our most intimate feelings. What we write is raw and honest. We vent, we explore, we admit our fears and regrets. The films in this program are consciously mining the filmmakers’ personal lives, using the immediacy of the footage to settle their own feelings, by turns comic and cartoonish, romantic and violent.

THE FILMS
Full Effect (Jeremy Bailey | Toronto, ON | 2:20)
Veteran Rooftop filmmaker Jeremy Bailey wants to be understood, and pulls out his most emotive video effects in a desperate plea to connect with you.

Carmichael & Shane (Alex Weinress & Rob Carlton | Pymble, Australia | 6:00)
Shane also wants to be understood, but there’s only so much compassion going around. A comic tale about twins.

Baby Cakes Diary #3 (Brad Neely | Austin, TX | 2:45)
Baby Cakes profound thoughts are recorded in another day’s diary: a trip to the park with a bag of banana chowder, a search for wizard turds, and a glimpse of the Brain Fuckler, just fuckling the shit out of people’s brains.

Film Makes Us Happy (Bryan Wizeman | Brooklyn, NY | 12:20)
When filmmaking is your passion but also your problem, turning the camera on your own life may be the only solution. Rooftop alum Wizeman “documents the last fight my wife and I will ever have about making films.”

Every Other Girl in the World (Christopher Miner | Jackson, MS | 29:00)
When Rooftop last saw Miner (Between Me and the Earth, 6/22/07), he was traveling to Niagara Falls to shed his virginity. Now we’re with him on his honeymoon in Acapulco, where he once spent a summer, years ago. But his wife doesn’t know his complicated history, and Miner’s own critical self-analysis (and over-thinking) threatens to ruin the trip, if not the marriage, just as they begin.

INTERMISSION

I Met the Walrus (Josh Raskin | Toronto, ON | 6:00)
In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan (the producer of this film) captured one of the greatest teenage home recordings of all time: he snuck into John Lennon’s apartment to conduct an impromptu interview. Almost 40 years later, animator John Raskin unearths the tape, and poetically gives life to this long lost artifact, which puts Levitan’s youthful optimism in balance with Lennon’s cynical hopes.

Count Backwards from Five (Tony Gault | Glenwood Springs, CO | 6:00)
A visual exploration of generosity and addiction. Tony Gault returns to Rooftop, using old answering machine tapes and home movie footage to decipher his brother’s serenely troubled life.

Relax at Home (Sara Pomerance | New York, NY | 3:30)
One of the misfortunes of old age is revealed in this simple slice of life at a relaxing brunch.

A Film About Violence (Ethan Knecht | New York, NY | 1:00)
The simple and powerful example of the ways the film frame shapes (and distorts) our understanding.

White Vans (Aren Hansen | Vancouver, BC | 13:00)
Hansen uses video surveillance to set a trap for a bike thief, but learns more about himself and the nature of revenge than he learns about the would-be criminal.

The Things She Would Tell Me (Miryam Welbourne | Brooklyn, NY | 2:00)
An innocently recorded lunch conversation reveals a shockingly guilt-free revelation about love and murder.

The Apology Line (James Lees | London, UK | 10:00)
Members of the public anonymously confess to absolutely anything over the telephone.