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.
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 (pictured above)
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.