Rooftop Films Presents: Stay The Same Never Change (Event Over)

SATURDAY, JULY 25TH
STAY THE SAME NEVER CHANGE
PLUS buy a discounted combo ticket for the outdoor Issue Project Room Michael Gira (Swans) performance and save.
Celebrated video artist Nakadate's first feature-length film, a hilarious and horrifying work starring a series of teenage girls in their own rooms and clothes, in a world in which the banal becomes extreme and the normal is infused with a chronic and discomfiting strangeness.
 

Venue: On the roof of the Old American Can Factory
Address: 232 3rd St. @ 3rd Ave. (Gowanus/ Park Slope, Brooklyn)
Directions: F/G to Carroll St. or M/R to Union Ave.
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held indoors at the same location
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Live music by Stars Like Fleas presented by Sound Fix Records
9:00PM: Film

10:30PM: Filmmaker Q & A
11:00PM–12:30AM: Reception in courtyard including free sangria courtesy of Carlo Rossi sangria
Tickets: $9 at the door or online or $20 for the combo ticket which includes admission to the outdoor performance by Michael Gira

Presented in partnership with: Cinereach, New York magazine, & XØ Projects

No refunds. In the event of rain, the show will be indoors at the same locations. Seating is first come, first served. Physical seats are limited. This means you may not get a chair. You are welcome to bring a blanket and picnic.

MAP | STARS LIKE FLEAS | MICHAEL GIRA | OFFICIAL FILM WEBSITE | TRAILER | ISSUE PROJECT ROOM


STAY THE SAME NEVER CHANGE (Laurel Nakadate | New York | 93 min.)

Remember being a teenager? Remember how awkward you felt? Remember how often you were bored out of your mind, but how emotions and events were always so dire? Everyone in your class was stupid, or a slut, or smelly. Everyone but Jesse. If only he’d break up with Bitch Face. Ugh, you didn’t want to be like your mother, but other adults—even Mom’s loser yoga teacher and the creepy exterminators she hired—other adults were so alluring. Yeah, it was uncomfortable and gross, but you’d sing a song for some dude, or play “life guard,” or even let him kiss you. . . on the cheek. Did it feel good? Did it excite you? Were you scared? Was that really you, is that what you wanted? It was hard to tell. And it still is.

Laurel Nakadate’s disturbing and droll fiction feature Stay The Same Never Change crackles with the pathos of Midwestern American teen lives, and the memories and feelings we all carry with us into adulthood.

Filmed with non-professional actors, Stay the Same focuses on a few teenage girls, wearing their own clothes, haunting their own suburban sprawl, essentially playacting their own lives. Originally from the Midwest, Nakadate wrote the script assuming she would play the roles herself (as she often did in her previous video work), but casting the girls added a disquieting layer of authenticity to the honest but overtly absurd scenarios and dialogue. As opposed to the stock and staid environments that fill so many teen movies (even works that critique coming-of-age melodrama and cultural malaise), Nakadate has crafted a world in which the banal becomes extreme and the normal is infused with a chronic and discomforting strangeness. It’s a world in which every crank call, every MySpace video message, every detail and exchange are delightfully outlandish yet completely believable. The effect sparks the imagination, evoking the muddle of teenage sensations that still linger within all of us.

But Stay the Same doesn’t give in to easy jokes or simplistic empathy, never making fun of the characters nor allowing complete immersion into their emotional states. The opening scene, in which a stalker/kidnapper talks about watching these girls, establishes the entire film as a balance between voyeurism and participation. His character, throughout the film, snaps us out of our reverie, as when he gives one girl a hug, and a fleeting glimpse of terror flashes on her face.

Thus, the film opens access to these teenage feelings, but with one level of remove, allowing us to connect and critique simultaneously. We feel the desperate love of a crush, mixed with the burning hatred of peers who reject us, and recognize the extremes which lead a girl to say, in one rush of self-explanation, “I hate myself . . . I’m an optimistic person.” We identify with the unfocused empathy for tornado victims, but also question the impulse of simple, misplaced acts of kindness, the belief that our good deeds may result in a meaningful connection with a celebrity talk show host. We know what it’s like to want to drown, a metaphor that links the domesticity of teddy bears to the global concern of dying polar bears; to drown, as a means of gaining control through struggle and cessation; to drown, to go up in smoke, or down the hood of a car, or into the future knowing only the unchanging calm of uncertainty.

SPECIAL ISSUE PROJECT ROOM PERFORMANCE BY MICHAEL GIRA
Prior to the Rooftop Films event, there will be a special outdoor performance by Michael Gira of Swans, hosted by Issue Project Room. You can buy a combo ticket for both events for $20 and get to see Michael Gira, Stars Like Fleas, Stay the Same never Change, PLUS get admission to an open bar after party in the courtyard following the movie.

The Michael Gira show starts @ 6:00
Doors @ 5:30

Michael Gira (Angels Of Light / Swans)
Michael Gira founded the seminal NYC band Swans in 1982. Quickly infamous for their punishing, brutal and repetitive onslaughts of sound, extreme volume levels, and the self-abusing, abject shouts and growls of Gira’s sloganeering vocals, Swans gradually transformed over 15 years, ultimately venturing into harsh mechanical proto-industrial rock, to sprawling shifts of texture and perspective (see the bucolic atmospheric folk idles and martial stomps of their much heralded Children of God double LP from 1987), to gentle acoustic-based songs, and finally on to their ultimate statement, Soundtracks For The Blind (1997) which somehow incorporated all of these elements at once, across well over 2 hours of music in one album. At this point, Gira called it quits after 15 years of relentless touring and productivity, and disbanded Swans. Since 1999 Gira has released his music under the name Angels Of Light. He writes the songs for Angels Of Light on acoustic guitar and orchestrates them using a shifting cadre of musicians, employing a wide variety of instrumentation such as strings, wind, brass, electric guitars, electronics and choral vocals. The songs are often eccentric and extreme, in keeping with Gira’s love of soundtrack music. Though nominally more traditional than Swans, Angels Of Light is often just as hard hitting through different means. The most recent album by Angels Of Light is We Are Him. Though Angels Of Light recordings are often elaborately orchestrated, Gira has recently chosen to tour exclusively solo, using acoustic guitar and voice. The performances are raw, to the point, and emotionally powerful. When not recording, writing music, or touring, Gira spends his time producing and releasing music through his label Young God Records. He’s been responsible of late for such notable talents as Devendra Banhart, Lisa Germano, Akron/Family, Fire On Fire, and most recently, Larkin Grimm. In early 2009 Young God will release the YGR debut by the acclaimed composer/guitarist James Blackshaw.

” Armed with only an acoustic guitar and a commanding baritone, Michael Gira could make mincemeat out of the most “extreme” metal and punk bands. His heavy-handed strumming and clear, virile voice—not to mention his impeccable, neatly pressed appearance—lend ample gravitas to even his prettiest folk ballads. (Lyrics like “When you open your mouth you’re too stupid to scream” will seduce misanthropes who dig Thomas Bernhard novels rather than pixies who worship Joanna Newsom CDs.)…’ It’s heartening to see that Gira, the erstwhile East Village confrontationist, now in his early fifties and living upstate, has reached one more peak in his long, unpredictable career.”
--Time Out NY

Rooftop Films is a non-profit organization whose mission is to engage and inspire the diverse communities of New York City by showcasing the work of emerging filmmakers and musicians. In addition to our Summer Series – which takes place in unique outdoor venues every weekend throughout the summer – Rooftop provides grants to filmmakers, teaches media literacy and filmmaking to young people, rents low-cost equipment to artists and non-profits, and produces new independent films. At Rooftop Films, we bring the underground outdoors. For more information and updates please visit our website at www.rooftopfilms.com.