Rooftop Films announces the 2015 ‘Rooftop Filmmakers Fund’ grant recipients

Actress Royalty Hightower in Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits

Rooftop Films has awarded thirteen cash and service grants to alumni filmmakers, including The Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund Garbo NYC Feature Film Grants, which were awarded to directors Kitty Green and Sebastian Silva. Green will receive a monetary grant of $15,000 to help finish her new film, Casting JonBenet, and Silva will receive a $10,000 grant to support his film, Demon Me.

“Kitty Green’s film Casting JonBenet represents the type of daring and meaningful cinema that Rooftop Films wants to support,” said Rooftop’s Founder and Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg. Green’s film is a sly and stylized documentary about the infamous murder of child model JonBenet Ramsey, using casting tapes and recreations by people from the community to create an emotional investigation of the case and its ramifications. “Like all our filmmakers, Green is working outside the mainstream, approaching a complex situation with narrative nuance and filmic innovation. We’re confident that all the films we’re supporting, from serious documentaries to outlandish fairy tales, are going to have a substantial impact.”

Kitty Green’s previous films include Ukraine is Not a Brothel, which won the 2015 AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, and “The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul,” which won the Jury Award for best non-fiction short documentary at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Sebastian Silva’s work includes The Maid, Nasty Baby, and Crystal Fairy, all of which have won numerous awards around the world.

“Garbo NYC is proud to support narratives that communicate what needs to be said and which disregard the extent of our collective constraints,” said Anett Gabriel, CEO of Garbo NYC.” “Furthermore, you couldn’t put these projects in better hands.”

“We’re very excited about all our grantees this year,” said Dan Nuxoll, Program Director of Rooftop Films. “Each year we receive more promising applications from our acclaimed alumni filmmakers, and from an increasingly diverse pool of talent. Rooftop has always been dedicated to creating a venue for a wide range of creative voices and with the support of our audience and our partners we are increasingly capable of helping those films get made in the first place.”

The Rooftop Films and GarboNYC Feature Film Grants are the largest cash grant awarded as part of the Rooftop Filmmakers Fund this year. Thirteen different grants were awarded to Rooftop Films alumni in 2015, including the inaugural Brigade Festival Publicity Grant, as well as grants supported by our returning partners at Eastern Effects, Edgeworx Studios, Technological Cinevideo Services (TCS), Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), and The Adrienne Shelley Foundation. To see a full list of the 2015 grantees with award details and film synopses, visit rooftopfilms.com/2015/info/produce

COMPLETE LIST OF 2015 ROOFTOP FILMMAKERS FUND GRANTS

Rooftop Films / GarboNYC $15,000 Feature Film Grant:

Kitty Green, Casting JonBenet

Rooftop Films / GarboNYC $10,000 Feature Film Grant:

Sebastian Silva, Demon Me

Rooftop Films / Brigade Festival Publicity Grant:

Anna Rose Holmer, The Fits

Rooftop Films / Technological Cinevideo Services Camera Grant:

Khalik Allah, Jamaica

Rooftop Films / Eastern Effects Equipment Grant:

Lauren Wolkstein & Chris Radcliff, The Strange Ones

Rooftop Films / Edgeworx Post-Production Grant:

Anja Marquardt, Wolf

Rooftop Films / DCTV Color Correction Feature Film Grant:

Sarah J. Christman, Swarm Season

Rooftop Films / DCTV Equipment and Services Short Film Grant:

Ryan Mauskopf, Sloof’s Supershop

Rooftop Films / DCTV Equipment and Services Short Film Grant:

Nathan Kensinger, Managed Retreat

Rooftop Films / Adrienne Shelly Foundation Short Film Grant For Women:

Jennifer Reeder, All Small Bodies

In addition to the above grants, Rooftop Films helped negotiate post-production services at Metropolis Films for alumni filmmaker Robert Greene.

Robert Greene, Kate Plays Christine

Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund Short Film Grant:

Christopher K. Walker & Michael Beach Nichols, Beast of Man

Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Market Place

Nathan Kensinger, Managed Retreat

This year’s grantees join the ranks of past Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grantees, an illustrious group that includes Ana Lily Amirpour’s soon to be completed The Bad Batch, Gillian Robespierre with her indie hit Obvious Child, Jonas Carpignano’s recent Gotham award-winner Mediterranea, Lucy Walker with her Academy Award-nominated short documentary “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom,” Jeremy Saulnier’s FIPRESCI Critics’ award-winner, Blue Ruin, Keith Miller’s critically acclaimed and Tribeca Film Festival award-winning Five Star, and Benh Zeitlin’s Academy Award-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild.

ABOUT THE ROOFTOP FILMMAKERS FUND GRANTS

Year after year, Rooftop Films extends support to independent filmmakers beyond film exhibition through the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund Grants. The Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund uses community and partner support to provide grants to filmmakers whose work has screened at Rooftop Films previously. A portion of all ticket sales and film submission fees is set aside and given back to selected filmmakers to help with their future productions, forging a bond between audiences and artists in a unique cycle of exhibition and production. For additional information on other grantees, visit rooftopfilms.com/2015/info/produce.

The Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund is also sponsored in part by contributions from its fans and community. In order to help Rooftop continue to provide grants for independent filmmakers, please consider making a pledge on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/1O180ql

ABOUT ROOFTOP FILMS

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 equipment at low-cost 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.

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