Rooftop Films 18th Annual Summer Series Kicks off its Opening Weekend

Rooftop Films 2014 Summer Series Feature Films Line-up
(For trailers, tickets, and venue, click on the film’s title)

Afronauts (Friday, May 16, 2014)

Jim Mickle’s Sundance hit is an ostensible thriller-cum-revenge flick, harking back to 80’s b-movies and delicately crafted around a simple premise that turns out to be anything but. Courtesy of IFC Films.

Swedish auteur Lukas Moodysson’s (Show Me Love, Together) raucous and ebullient film about three pre-teen outcasts who form an all-girl punk band. Courtesy of Magnolia Films.

The year is 1985. Rad Miracle is a shy thirteen-year-old white kid who’s obsessed with two things: ping pong and hip hop. During his family’s annual summer vacation to Ocean City, Maryland, Rad makes a new best friend, experiences his first real crush, becomes the target of rich local bullies, and finds an unexpected mentor in his outcast next-door neighbor. Ping Pong Summer is about that time in your life when you’re treated like an alien by everyone around you, even though you know deep down you’re as funky fresh as it gets. Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.

Sara Dosa’s insightful directorial debut introduces viewers to the world of mushroom hunters in Chemult, Oregon, charting the relationships that are cultivated between men and nature, and attesting to the power of families we create.

Free Show. In a blend of fiction and reality, Five Star explores the relationship between two men, Primo, a five star general in the Bloods, and John, a young man trying to decide whether gang life is the path for him. As Primo mentors John in the workings of the gang world, a secret threatens both men’s futures. Winner of a Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grant.

Running through life with wild abandon, lifelong friends Leni and Lazar set out on an improvised countryside bike trip. Like tiny tornadoes they whirl around rural Serbia resulting in the type of destruction that can only come from true, disastrous love.

Anna Kendrick stars as a newly single woman who crashes with her brother and wreaks havoc on his household in Joe Swanberg’s delicate comedy, which also features energetic turns by Melanie Lynskey and Lena Dunham. Courtesy of Magnolia Films.

Austin-based filmmakers the Zellner brothers return to Rooftop with a touching absurdist odyssey starring Rinko Kikuchi as a Japanese woman who believes Fargo is a true story and ventures to Minnesota in search of the stolen money hidden during the classic Coen brothers film.

Clint and Dwayne are two of a kind. The kind that start a pimped-out pony gang (ponies replete with glitter, oversized sunglasses, and bling) on the edges of rural New Zealand. Riding through town the duo deals some drugs, tries to snuggle up to some ladies, and attempts a fundraiser for new teeth while learning the lengths people will go for their mates.

Separated by 10,000 kilometers, Alexandra and Sergi must rely on virtual communication to keep the flame of their relationship alive. But with their realities no longer shared and the touch of one another gone, the technology that has supposedly brought the world closer together may just tear them apart.

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities. Being without a cliché to hold onto can be a lonely experience.

When a mild-mannered Japanese mattress salesman joins a hidden, mysterious S&M club that specializes in surprising its clients in public and applying sadistic, sexual torture in any place at any time he soon realizes the price for pleasure may be too high. Courtesy of Drafthouse Films.

A married couple on the brink of separation escapes to a beautiful vacation house for a weekend getaway in an attempt to salvage what’s left of their relationship. That’s about where normalcy ends in this highly original, dizzyingly bizarre directorial debut from acclaimed author Charlie McDowell. Courtesy of Radius-TWC.

Part of Rooftop Films SXSW Weekend. Focusing on the life of a sex surrogate working in Manhattan, Anja Marquardt’s impressively assured directorial debut casts a penetrating gaze on the complexities of professional intimacy.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reprise their roles as themselves in this follow-up to the acclaimed The Trip in yet another off-the-cuff food adventure. Six meals in six different places on a road trip around Italy. Liguria, Tuscany, Rome, Amalfi and ending in Capri. Courtesy of IFC Films.