Ya gotta love Rooftop Films! Not only are they remarkably creative in finding new venues for showcasing independent films, they also fund worthy projects. In fact, Rooftop films takes $1 from each ticket sold to its unique screenings and each film submission fee, and sets the money aside for grants to filmmakers whose work they've shown. The goal is to help a diverse range of filmmakers create meaningful, personal, unique films with grants that spur them to forge ahead with projects that wouldn't otherwise get made.
In 2009, four grants -- two for feature films and two for shorts -- are being given, and more than 100 Rooftop Films alumni applied for them. Just announced, recipients of the grants for short films are:
- Norman Schwartzkopf Made Me Gay by Sara Zia Ebrahimi is a personal film that recounts how "Stormin'" Norman Schwartzkopf's life has influenced the filmmaker's. Norman Schwartzkopf Made Me Gay humorously weaves together personal history with world events in an effort to increase the audience's knowledge about US foreign policy relations with Iran over the past century. The film draws on a variety of events in Ebrahimi's life that parallel or directly intersect with Schwartzkopf's--everything from his childhood memories of Iran where his father was stationed to being arrested by secret service agents for asking a question. The film utilizes experimental techniques to add a visually engaging approach to this historical recounting and illustrate the unique storyline. This grant has a first-time tag: Rooftop Films, wanting to address the lack of films directed by women, partnered with Chicken and Egg Pictures to award $6,000 grant, plus mentorship, specifically to a female filmmaker.
The second grant, underwritten by Cinereach (ya gotta love them, too), is divided among three projects, each of which received an undisclosed sum:
- Crazy Beats Strong Every Time by Moon Molson is about an African-American twenty-something, Markees, who finds his Nigerian-immigrant stepfather passed out drunk in his building hallway one night. Motivated by shame and the restraining order his mother has placed on his stepfather, Markees and his friends drag the unconscious man into his car in order to find him a more suitable place to sleep. But as the night dwindles on, the young men become increasingly aware of the futility of unloading the stepfather. Tensions build and frustrations mount, forcing the situation toward a violent end. Crazy Beats Strong Every Time shows how in a world where being 'hard' is the ultimate masculine value, a basically decent young man -- if humiliated, taunted and pushed far enough -- can do the unimaginable in the name of 'saving face.'
- Knife by James M. Johnston is a searing portrait of vengeance. Set in rural Texas, the story chronicles an unnamed man with a broken spirit. He returns to his family from an unknown place -- maybe prison, maybe war. In spite of his family's warm welcome, the man can't shake an anger that builds in him, returning to the land that was once theirs, a land that had been in the family for generations, a land that has been stolen, plundered, and sewn with seeds of greed. There's a force at work, a corruption that destroys homes, nature, families, memories. Told entirely in silence, Knife explores the details, textures, physical actions of his ruinous mission to sate the hatred in his heart with the knife he carries in his hand.
- We Have No Home by Dustin Guy Defa is a personal documentary in which Defa returns to his hometown to explore his family's long history of violence, substance abuse, and heartache -- including two cases of manslaughter, an attempted suicide, a shooting, a fatal overdose, and a death from alcohol poisoning. Defa says he feels detached from his family, yet concerned with their endless suffering. The recent arrest and conviction of Defa's uncle causes him to take action. The film uses verite style interviews and new footage, interspersed with old home movies. The filmmaker's voice-over guides the audience through the past and present. Defa says, "By asking tough questions to family members and illuminating some of the reasons we are the way we are, my objective is to lighten the tragic element of our lives, to observe it as a storyline that is still alive and changing."
Rooftop Film's feature film grants, created in partnership with Eastern Effects and with Edgeworx, will be announced shortly. Stay tuned!
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