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Rooftop Films is now accepting submissions for the 2006 Summer Series!

2006 will mark the 10th year of films from the rooftop.

2006 will mark the 10th year of films from the rooftop.

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Submit your movies! We are currently accepting submissions for the 2006 Summer Series. In June 2006 we will begin celebrating our 10th year of bringing the best underground films in the world outdoors and to the rooftops of New York. Submit your films and videos now and participate in one of the most unforgettable, unique, filmmaker-friendly, independent film events in the world!

A complete list of rules and regulations are available on the rooftop films website. Films can be submitted via Withoutabox.com or directly to Rooftop Films. If you are not submitting via Without a Box, you MUST send in a submission form with your film.

General deadlines and fees have changed since last year:
Early bird: $8, postmarked by January 15, 2006
Regular: $10, postmarked by March 1st, 2006
Late: $12, postmarked by March 15, 2006
Without A Box Extended: $15, postmarked by April 1, 2006*
* Without A Box members only.
All submission fees are still just recommended.
Rooftop continues to accept films year round, but if you want to guarantee that your films will be considered for the 2006 Summer Series please make sure to submit them on or before the deadlines.

The Festival
The 2006 Summer Series will run from June through September and will feature more than 250 daring new films, all screened outdoors, in front of big, loyal audiences in parks, on boats, and on rooftops overlooking the greatest city in the world. More than 8,000 people attended Rooftop screenings in 2005, making it one of the most popular festivals in New York City and one of the biggest festivals for underground films in the world. The 2006 Summer Series will surely feature even bigger crowds, even more beautiful venues, and more incredible films.

For the past 10 years, Rooftop Films has been committed to providing a venue, an audience, and a community for the wide array of short films and feature-length documentaries that are underserved by conventional commercial distributors, industry-run festivals, art galleries, and repertory theater retrospectives. We show comedies, dramas, experimental shorts, animation, videos, short and feature documentaries and political films, and home movies and found footage. We want films that tell us about where you live and how you live, and we seek independent movies with original ideas, regardless of production values. We screen the work of experienced professionals, long-time amateurs and first-time filmmakers alike. We also strongly encourage submissions by women and people of color. We show films of all genres, formats, and lengths, as long as they're daring, creative, and unique.

Rooftop Films are always looking for
-Shorts of all types and lengths. We have screened more than 1,000 shorts since 1997
-Narrative and Documentary Feature Films. We are expanding our schedule yearly to make room for more and more premieres and screenings of films yet to get theatrical distribution
-New York Non-Fiction shorts and features
-Home Movies/Found Footage
-Films made by women and people of color
-Animated shorts and features
-Films about working, living and building. Films that deal with architecture, commerce, city planning, manufacturing and the impact of commercial and residential development on our lives.
-Sophisticated political films
-World Cinema
-Community Portraits. Films that show us where and how you live and work.
-Youth-Produced Films
-Any other type of film that will challenge and amaze us.

Curating our Programs
I enjoy the blend of strong and at times controversial pieces, a combination of sweet and spicy that work well together.
—Jen Sachs, Animator

We received over 1,500 submissions in 2005, and every single one of those films was watched and apprised by one of our 3 programmers, so the Rooftop staff gets to see a good portion of the best the festival circuit has to offer. But while our primary goal is to screen the best new films we can find, we also believe that our mission entails more than just choosing great films. We believe that a film festival has a responsibility to present films in exciting and innovative ways so that we can reach wide audiences and show interesting work in a manner that optimizes the impact of the films.

This is, of course, why we choose to show films outdoors in New York. A film framed by the city skyline becomes more than just a film, it becomes part of the neighborhood, and we try to choose films that will add to the environment in which they will be screened, just as we try to choose venues that will enhance the films that we show.

We also work harder than most festivals to program films together in such a way that the films complement one another. While some festivals tend to toss unrelated shorts and features into disorganized bundles, Rooftop believes that strategically programming complementary films together can add to the impact of all the works included and that a carefully curated show can bring out subtle resonances in even the most textured and accomplished films.

Now, more than ever before, screening your film in the Rooftop Summer Series is a unique opportunity to bring your new work to big crowds and have your film shown in an unforgettable location for our intelligent, enthusiastic loyal audience.

Submitting to Rooftop
The experience of submitting to Rooftop was GREAT! Submitting was easy and fair, the entry fee is lower then at any other festival and the Rooftop people are kind and understanding.
—Signe Baumane, Animator

Rooftop Films is committed to helping filmmakers get their films screened and we believe that it is the responsibility of a film festival to make it as easy as possible for filmmakers to submit their films and get them screened. That is why we don't demand that filmmakers send us exorbitant submission fees. There is a recommended early submission fee of $8.00 per filmmaker or curator for any films postmarked prior to January 15th, and for that fee you can submit as many films as you like without paying additional submission fees.

At Rooftop we believe that the role of a festival is to help filmmakers bring their work to bigger audiences, not to profit off of their ambition, so we do everything that we can to make it easier for filmmakers to send in their work. The $8.00 early submission fee is the same as the price of admission to a Rooftop screening and we believe that is as it should be; that way filmmakers and audience members can, at least in one small way, contribute equally to the Rooftop community and neither need be saddled by any unfair expense. And a struggling filmmaker need never despair: no film will ever be turned away due to lack of funds. Furthermore, if you submit a work to Rooftop Films you automatically get 2 free tickets to any one Rooftop Summer Series show, whether or not we are able to screen your film.

Co-Curating with Rooftop
Rooftop Films also encourages curators to send entire programs of films. In the past, other festivals, venues and programmers from around the world have hosted nights of their movies or collaborated with Rooftop on a program that has been screened as part of the Summer Series. We want to work with other groups who want to show off their unique cinematic visions.

SOURCE: Rooftop Films

http://www.rooftopfilms.com