Cinema Under the Stars: Rooftop Films Return
The Rooftop Films Summer Series is returning this year and will begin this Saturday, May 31, 2008. The series has come a long way since its inception in 1997 when films were screened atop a tenement on the Lower East Side. This year the IFC will screen 19 feature films and over 150 short films in 38 screenings. All screenings include live music before the films, and most screenings include after-parties with free drinks.
Screenings take place at a number of outdoor locations across the boroughs of New York, including Open Road Rooftop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the rooftop of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, and on the pier at Solar One at 23rd Street and the East River.
The season begins this Saturday, May 31 at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn with a free screening of the documentary At the Death House Door, a film by Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and Peter Gilbert (Vietnam: Long Time Coming). The film introduces viewers to Pastor Carroll Pickett, who presided over 95 executions while acting as the prison chaplain at the infamous “Walls” prison in Huntsville, Alabama. The film also introduces the audience to Carlos De Luna, a convict who was counseled by Pastor Pickett and whom Pickett believed was innocent. The film follows the developments of Chicago Tribune reporters, who later compiled evidence to suggests De Luna was, in fact, innocent and wrongly convicted.
Rooftop Films continue at various locations every weekend through September 27, 2008. Tickets cost $9 at the door and $6 online in advance for select shows. For a full list of the scheduled films as well as more information, check the IFC’s Rooftop Films 2008 Summer Series.
Photo credit: Flickr
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1 opinion for Cinema Under the Stars: Rooftop Films Return
J-Michael
May 31, 2008 at 6:24 pm
This is so neat! I wish I was back in New York right now…If only there were still more drive-ins too, the world would be a better place :)
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