If you think about it on paper, Rooftop Films, a film festival that makes stops throughout the city over the course of the summer, made a great choice selecting Coney Island as one of its venues.

Who wouldn’t want to spend a warm summer night redolent with the sea, surrounded by Coney Island’s unique appeal, watching a movie on a big screen with some pals or gals?

It seems like a great night.

It’s why I was so psyched to go.

Rooftop at Coney Island - photo courtesy of Rooftop Films

And I wasn’t the only one.

“I thought it’d be an interesting venue,” said one Rooftop-goer, Steven, while sitting on Coney’s sand waiting for the first of the night’s 12 short films.

“We’ve been to a couple others (of the Rooftop fests), and it’s fun.”

Rooftop Films prides itself, like many other local film festivals, as being a bridge between much of the pop culture-sodden public and underground filmmakers.

According to its mission statement, “Rooftop Films is a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit organization whose mission is to engage and inspire diverse communities.”

“We are a collective collaboration between filmmakers and festivals, between audience members and artists, between venues and neighborhoods.”

It provides $1 from every ticket it sells to fund local production, is present at local schools, and rents its equipment out at reduced rates, and that’s good (I know, very good), but at how much of a cost for the viewers? Surely there must be a middle ground.

In my pieces about Bryant Park Film fest and Tropfest, I spoke about the authentic, lie-down-and-chill vibe of both fests (both benefitting from Bryant Park’s comfort). Those two festivals are a joy to be at. And I realize that perhaps they don’t have the same goal financially as Rooftop, but they certainly do a better job environmentally.

But —and I understand that not everywhere is as packed as Coney Island— Rooftop was flooded with solicitors, some gimmicky pre-film AT&T thing where you text a number and it shows up on screen, on-stage fire-breathers, and the unfortunate Coney Island frequenter oblivious to movie-watching crowds.

The fest has a goal, and an admirable one, but doesn’t seem to know how to deliver yet.

But in regard to the films, it does a pretty good job, and it was great to see some local filmmakers at work.

“Odysseus’ Gambit,” a film about a Filipino-American chess-player, who makes all of his money off low-wage street bets, was a really cool and original bite of New York life.

And “The Best Thing I Ever Done,” a film about Di Fara, a corner pizza shop, who don’t settle for anything less than perfection was heartwarming and memorable.

At The Show

The films, overall, were a pleasure, (the fest also shows feature films, it showed Ghostbusters in Coney on July 2) and the fest is respectable, but perhaps (despite its appearance on paper) Coney Island is not the best place to show films.

Fortunately, there will also be films shown in Socrates Sculptures Park in Queens, Metrotech Commons, and The Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn, and these should all be better venues than the beach at Coney.

Even if only for absence of bumping sounds from bumpy rollercoasters.

I could possibly be spoiled from the great Bryant Park Film Fest and Tropfest (and I understand not everyone is partnered up with HBO and Hugh Jackman), but Rooftop should be able to make their setting a bit more movie, setting-oriented, rather than seem kitschy.

I’d definitely give Rooftop another chance —hey, maybe I was just in a weird mood—, but it definitely wouldn’t be at Coney Island.

One of the fest’s best films was “A Man Named Magick”, a 12-minute dive into the life of a New York street-style magician. Magick, the titular character, specializes in common street gimmicks— card tricks, floating rings, levitations, etc. He goes around impressing the unsuspecting, catching a few bucks along the way, but the film also provides a fresh sentiment about the slow decay of magic, and how, no matter how common it actually is, only a few people really appreciate it.

Perhaps Rooftop Films can learn a trick from Magick.

–Nick Gallinelli

This Year's NY Tropfest - photo by Tropfest

It’s become a park staple by now— every Monday throughout the summer a classic movie is shown in front of Bryant Park’s iconic lawn. From Psycho to Wizard of Oz to Indiana Jones, the midtown cinematic summer series continues to provide us a big screen to see the Alfred Hitchcocks, the George Lucases, and the Humphrey Bogarts of Hollywood. And we don’t complain. I, personally, love it. I go almost every Monday.

This weekend, though, was a refreshing new taste of cinema. Instead of the classics that made what movies are today, the park teamed up with Hugh Jackman (who is as good a host as he is an actor) to deliver terse, snappy, identifiable short films to a Saturday-evening crowd.

The quirky Australian-based Tropfest, self-dubbed “the world’s largest short film festival,” had its inaugural New York edition this weekend, and served as a spot for casual and fervent moviegoers as well as the fest’s star-studded judge panel.

And as far as someone who has attended prior Tropfests before, this year’s debut was a success.

“I was planning (on coming), because I’m from Sydney,” said Nicole… from Sydney. “I had been to one in Sydney, and (in New York) there’s a lot of people… but it’s the same kind of vibe.”

“She invited me,” echoed Luke, speaking about his Australian companion. “I had no idea what it was but I came and was pleasantly surprised, I really enjoyed it.”

“Looking for the strength of the idea, rather than slickness or technical merit,” the festival prides itself in giving opportunities to aspiring and news filmmakers. It “whittles” a pool of hundreds of entries down to eight, and awards $20,000 to the film the celebrity panel —this Tropfest featured Bridemaids’s Rose Byrne, 30 Rock’s Judah Friedlander, Dark Horse’s Ted Hope, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scott Foundas— deems best at the end of the night. According to Jackman’s preface, and the festival’s site, there are only a few restrictions regarding film production. The only rules are that films cannot exceed seven minutes and must include a TSI— the Tropfest Signature Item.

(This year’s New York TSI, fittingly, was a bagel. All films, oddly enough, had a bagel make a cameo at one point in the film (see above: quirky).)

It turns out, over 10,000 people, a packed house by Bryant Park standards, were interested enough to attend the fest and take a peak at the country’s eight best short films. It seems they weren’t disappointed.

“It was a spur of the moment thing for me, and I’m glad I came,” said Mike, who thought Elvis: The Lonely Hunter of Circle Beach should have won. “I enjoyed the films immensely, and yeah I’ll definitely be coming back for next year.

The fest’s raconteurs used their formatting freedom and time restrictions as a prompt for some interesting narration and ideas. Despite an anacoluthic Killer Bagels from Outerspace, films were hilarious (Elvis), intense (Elevator), uplifting (Emptys), and extremely clever (The Break-Up Tour).

photo by Syrenmuse

One NY Press writer is a bit confounded that The Break-Up Tour didn’t win the grand prize.

After all eight contestants were shown —and this after a segment that showed the best movies from prior Tropfests— the judging panel gave first-place prize to Emptys, which is a quick dive into the world of the country’s impecunious bottle collectors.

Tropfest will make its rounds around the globe throughout before returning to New York with 16 finalists next year, stopping in Las Vegas, Arabia, New Zealand, China, India, Paris, and it’s home, Australia. And while it continues to grow, it will also become smaller.

TropfestMicro is a new branch of the fest, and is a competition featuring super-short, 70-second films.

P.S. If you’re interested in entering next year’s New York contest, the TSI is “bridge”, with no distinction between the game, and the traffic-bearing structure.

–Nick Gallinelli