This Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, Rooftop Films will be showcasing two wonderful documentaries in Brooklyn as part of their '09 summer screening series.
First up, on Friday night, Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly will present their inspiring and award-winning film, The Way We Get By. Through greeting troops at the Bangor International Airport in Maine, a major US military deployment hub, three senior citizens not only transform their own lives, but touch thousands of others' lives, as well. I've dropped into several Q&As for this at various festivals and audiences are always just completely over the moon--not a dry eye in the house. Gaudet's and Pullapilly's first feature project has had a bountiful festival run and this will be the second time it has exhibited in the Big Apple. (Thom Powers showed it as part of his Stranger Than Fiction series this past spring.) You can read my laudatory review on the film here. Festivities will be on the lawn of Automotive High School in Williamsburg. Doors open at 8 for the regular drill: fabulous crowd, great live music from a local band, great film, after party with free drinks at Matchless on Manhattan Ave. Click here to order tickets.
Gaudet and Pullapilly are also gearing up for the film's theatrical release débuting at the IFC Center here in New York on Friday, July 17, with the filmmakers in attendance at selected screenings throughout opening weekend. Visit their website for more information and to read about the other special events throughout the week-long run with one of their outreach partners, Operation Homefront. They currently have dates set for runs in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall (August 14) and in Boston at the Museum of Fine Art (August 27). Repeat after me: a successful New York opening weekend will enable the film to exhibit at more theaters across the nation!! On Saturday night, Rooftop will present Bill Ross and Turner Ross' feature début, 45365, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at this year's SXSW festival in Austin (the film's premiere), recipient of an honorable mention nod for the HBO Emerging Filmmaker Award at Full Frame, and a special jury prize at the Newport International Film Festival. Many, many people think this is an exquisite movie-going experience. I would be one of them. A grandly cinematic piece, it's meant to be seen on a big screen. So here's your chance to go see it on one.
Over the course of nine months, the brothers Ross shot this graceful and colorful portrait of their hometown of Sidney, Ohio--the title is the town's postal code. We, as viewers, get to sit back and let imagery, from the sublime to the mundane, wash over us in a sensorial kaleidoscope of sound and vision. It's a strangely relaxing experience with small jolts of exhilaration and glee. There is no omniscient voice intoning inane (nor poetic) recitations about life in a small town on the soundtrack; there are no talking head interviews; there is really no discernible plot line. What the film does contain are snapshots crafted to make the most of the mood and timbre and rhythm of a place and its inhabitants.
Even if one was raised in the middle of a big, bustling city, there is some weird kind of universal nostalgia evoked through the lens of these native small-town sons. Like the place it photographs, the camera's gaze is wide-open and friendly, most times keeping a polite distance while picking up intimate details in an oblique way (except for scenes like the full-on smooch in a bar, which is unabashedly voyeuristic, and the pulse-pounding physicality of the running-with-the-bulls shots at the football game). The sound design is quite sophisticated, providing a contrapuntal element in both rhythm and harmony to the visual panorama, the passing snippets of vérité interwoven with transcendent sequences of flight and fancy. There is a whole sequence shot on an amusement park ride that is absolutely thrilling in its beauty, creating an integration between "real life" and "art" that is evocative of first crushes and first drunken kisses and first rollercoaster rides and all those other seminal and intense human experiences we all hope we can recall over and over again, even into our dotage. I can't think of a better summertime movie.
45365 will be distributed through 7th Arts Releasing. The film will also be exclusively screened for one week starting Friday, July 31st on the SnagFilms.com Distribution Network, the second film of its online summer fest.
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