In twelve years, Mark Elijah Rosenberg has transformed Rooftop Films from a party he threw on his East Village roof with a sheet and a projector to a summer long short film festival with screenings at unique locations all over the five boroughs. The organization has forged collaborations with more than 30 film festivals, schools, and social service organizations throughout New York's five boroughs and across the country. Tomorrow night Rooftop will hold a free screening of at the north end of Central Park of “Trouble the Water”, a Sundance Award Winning documentary about people in the 9th Ward of New Orleans who filmed their own survival of Hurricane Katrina. Mark took some time to answer our questions about what inspires him so much in showing art that is forced to interact with the city that surrounds it.

Can you tell the story of the first Rooftop screening? I was a young filmmaker in 1997 who had made some short films which had screened at a couple of festivals, and I’d seen some great films by my friends and others, but I wanted more people to see this work. At the same time, I was always hanging out on my rooftop on 14th St. and 1st Ave., and it seemed like a great place to have a film festival. I bought a used 16mm film projector, stapled a sheet to the wall, borrowed some chairs from a furniture company, invited my friends, tied the building’s door open, and magically some 300 people showed up to see films they’d never heard of. The chairs put little dents in the tar paper roof, and even though the super patched them in 10 minutes with a $12 bucket of tar, my landlord used that as an excuse to give me the boot. But the event had worked so well, I decided to do it again next year, out in Brooklyn, where my friends Dan Nuxoll and Joshua Breitbart had set up a loft.

I imagine you use a lot of locations that generally remain untouched most of the time. What's been the strangest thing you've found while doing a screening? I think the most amazing thing that’s been found at Rooftop Films screenings is love. At our events, you watch a movie with hundreds of strangers, but it’s not like a typical movie-going experience, where you sit in a black room with strangers for an hour and a half, then get up and leave; nor is it like going to a bar, where mostly you hang out with your friends and talk about stuff external to the bar. There’s entertainment, and socializing, and a surprising number of people I know have met at Rooftop and eventually fallen in love. It’s also an amazing place to take a date, because even with all those people around, up on the roof or in some secret space, you do feel secluded, and special. Our upcoming screening of Romantic Short Films, “Looking for Love,” on Saturday, August 30 at The Yard will take that romance to a new level, as we’ll be accepting Personal Ads, Missed Connections, and general Romantic Notes on our website, playing them on screen before the show and at intermission, giving away free wine, showing romantic films in a romantic setting, and helping people to find love!

We both grew up in New York City. Rooftops here have always been more of a haven. Growing up on my block of buildings, the roof was the easiest way to escape the eyes of our parents and the other adults hanging around. Did you spend a lot of time on roofs as a kid? Do you think as adults they provide us the same sort of escape? I did spend a lot of time on New York City rooftops as a kid, and was basically still a kid when I started Rooftop Films (just a month out of college, in 1997). I think there’s something more significant than just escaping and doing illicit acts which plays into the thrill of visiting NYC rooftops, though that is part of the allure, whether you’re a teenager messing around or an adult visiting one of our (fully legal) events. I think the most crucial aspect of it is that you gain a new perspective, one that is both secret and exposed. To follow the metaphor of sneaking around your parents’ gaze, at Rooftop Films, we’re not necessarily showing you things you shouldn’t see, but rather finding a unique and new way to show you things you should see, but wouldn’t unless you came to Rooftop. You can come to Rooftop Films and enjoy amazing, original movies in a whole new way.

Have you ever screened Rooftop at a location so unique that the surroundings were drawing the audience's attention away from the films too much? Part of the allure at Rooftop Films is always the surroundings, and the way the content of the films has a relationship with the setting. This Friday, August 8, the film is “Up With Me”, a narrative film written and starring East Harlem teenagers, and shot in the same neighborhood in which we’ll be screening the film, on the roof of El Museo Del Barrio on 104th St and 5th Ave. Undoubtedly, there will be some noise from the street below, and from the crowd itself, recognizing the match between the movie and the location. But that kind of engagement is exactly what makes Rooftop screenings unique, exciting and memorable.

Are there any other neighborhoods you've screened in that have had a noticeably distinct audience come out to see the films? At Rooftop Films, we try to create interesting dynamics between the film and the venue, the audience and the neighborhood, so every screening is different. We want to choose a film for an area that the local community will appreciate, but also show things that will attract people to a new neighborhood that they might not otherwise visit. Some upcoming examples are:

+ August 6, the free screening at the north end of Central Park of “Trouble the Water”, a Sundance Award Winning documentary about people in the 9th Ward of New Orleans who filmed their own survival of Hurricane Katrina. I think that’s a film the people of Harlem will really appreciate, but which should also draw a diverse crowd from all over the city.

+ August 29, a screening in Greenpoint, a historically Polish neighborhood, of a film called “Tricks,” a contemporary Polish narrative. We really hope the local community will love it, but the film is also a sweet, light-hearted drama about a young boy and his sister looking for their father, and I think something that really anyone will enjoy.

Have you found that your audience's reaction to short films as a whole has shifted in the ten years since you've been doing Rooftop? Do you find it more or less difficult to get people interested and excited about shorts as time goes on? I think people have always been interested in short films, but in the past 12 years of Rooftop Films, the expanded availability of short films (on cable, on DVD compilations, on the internet, on your phone) means that people are seeing more, and have higher standards. At Rooftop, we receive over 2,000 short film submissions a year, so we’re selecting some of the best films in the world. All of our short film shows include a diverse range of films (comedies, drama, animation, documentary, experimental films, etc.), but the shows are curated thematically, around a central subject or thesis, so people can come see things they know they’ll be interested in, and some things that will surprise and delight them.

With Rooftop, people can also watch 100 short films from our festival online . The site also includes a short film blog, with thoughts about the films, director interviews, and comments sections where viewers can post questions for the filmmakers.

What upcoming screening are you most excited about? I’m genuinely excited about all of our upcoming screenings, but there are a couple worth mentioning.

This Saturday, August 9 we’ll be screening Spencer Parsons’ narrative romance “I’ll Come Running,” starring Melanie Diaz of “Raising Victor Vargas” and “Be Kind Rewind.” It’s a really funny, loving, and totally unique and dramatic film, which might otherwise fly under the radar a bit, but which I’m sure anyone would love.

On Saturday, August 15, we’ll be hosting a screening of Greg Kohs’ documentary “Song Sung Blue,” an astonishing and uplifting documentary about two American dreamers who fought to make people happy and forget their worries by playing the music of one of America’s favorite crooners, Neil Diamond. The man himself will be in town that week, so if you aren’t going to see him at The Garden, come out and join us for Neil Diamond Karaoke, and watch this joyous film. Free on Roosevelt Island.

What is the most special part of summers in New York? The Mets in a pennant race. Concerts in the parks and subway musicians on the streets. Cafes that put out water dishes for dogs. Playgrounds with fountains. Coney Island hot dogs, Red Hook soccer tacos, flavor ice carts, farmer’s markets everywhere. Running into friends in random places. Standing under an awning in a thunderstorm with strangers. The smell of garbage truck waste (really: it’s so New York). Sleeping with the windows open and hearing snippets of conversations in your dreams all night. And Rooftop Films—maybe our annual “New York Non-Fiction” show, on September 12, in particular.

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be? I think there should be more public space, more community events, more civic engagement with your neighbors (by which I mean all New Yorkers). People need to leave behind their air conditioned rooms, get off the subways and buses, and most importantly get out of their cars; people need to walk more, bike more, sit outside more, talk more, do more outside, with each other. I think we should open up more rooftops, parks and streets for events of all kinds. The city should encourage everyone to host film screenings, concerts, art shows, political discussions, dinners, anything that gets people to meet and communicate. Folks can start by coming to Rooftop Films.