What to See at Rockaway Film Festival #7
Founders Sam Fleischner and Courtney Muller talk about their intuitive approach, the Rockaway community, and highlights of this year's program.
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When Sam Fleischner move to Rockaway in 2010, he fell in love. Beyond being near the beach while still in New York City, he liked being surrounded by such a diverse community of people. “I know people through all ages, all walks of life, and I see them regularly,” he says. “I really enjoy that village life.”
For Fleischner, though, Rockaway was missing one thing: a movie theater. Fleischner had spent the bulk of his career to that point as a director and cinematographer. “Cinema is such an integral part of my life,” he says. “And [moviegoing] felt like such a gap in Rockaway life.” In 2013, Fleischner began looking at spaces and considering what it might look like to actually open a theater in Rockaway himself. And by 2018, as he got more serious about the idea, a local developer suggested that he start a local film festival as a prototype. Fleischner thought it was a great idea, but initially he didn’t want to be the person to spearhead the effort. “But the more I thought about it, I realized that if it was going to happen, I should just do it,” Fleischner says. “And I thought of Courtney Muller.”
Fleischner had worked well with Muller in production in the past, but the two had been out of touch for a couple years. “And then I bumped into her, like, that day,” Fleischner says. At that point, it felt like kismet. Fleischner successfully recruited Muller, and the two hustled to put on the debut festival that October. “The first year, it was so popular,” says Muller. “The response was like, ‘Yes, keep on doing this!’"
Seven years later, Rockaway has gradually and organically grown to span more venues across the peninsula, while each year presenting a lineup that takes a fresh shape. “The way we've been operating is you open this door, and here's the one you go through,” says Muller, adding that Rockaway’s intuitive approach is guided by experiments: “What would happen if we take over this abandoned funeral home outside? What if we went to this brewery? What if we went to national parks at Fort Tilden? What would that look like? It's always different.”
Ahead of the seventh annual Rockaway Film Festival — which runs from August 17 to August 25 — I caught up with Fleischner and Muller to discuss their approach to the festival, the challenges they’ve faced, and this year’s program.
When you first started the festival, did you have ideas around what the festival's identity would be and what you wanted to accomplish?
Muller: I think it's bringing things that are both exciting and surprising together and having a balanced program. Showing the full gamut of films. Really thinking of who our audience is and what they would like to see, but also what would be interesting to see alongside that. The festival program is really intuitive. We do not have an understanding of what we're going to do when we start the program. The way we program and build the lineup is: We'd love to show this film. Let's see if we can. And what other films does this make us think of? Can we show that one next to it? Where are they coming from when they see this film? What is the progression?
And it really is in line with how we think about space too. It's like, Where do you enter the space? What's the street you're going to go on? What are you going to pass? What's going to happen? The way you watch films — and people's opinion of films — changes so much based on the circumstance. If you're in a really crappy cinema and the person next to you smells, you're not going to like the movie. For us, it's very synchronous. We design the space around the films we imagine showing there. But in tandem, we're thinking about the films we present in relation to the setting in which people will see them.
Given that you're doing all of this pretty intuitively, I imagine some things work and some don't. Over the years, what have you found has clicked and what hasn't?
Muller: Our biggest challenge is space. It's been a huge part of our identity, because we're nomadic. We program based on the people that we know are going to be watching the movies and the spaces we're going to be showing films in. Because of that, the spaces guide the program, so those are limiting. We put a lot of time and care into every screening we do and we bring out a lot of filmmakers and artists and musicians and really put a lot of emphasis on that. Our current home is an outdoor cinema, and sometimes it rains. So the limited control we have over the space affects our programming and ability to plan for these things. We are really careful about the way we present films. But it's really hard to be careful when you have no control.
Fleischner: Another challenge is the geographical aspect of Rockaway being this long, eleven mile peninsula, with these little communities set along it. We know the area where we live the best because that's where we live. So when we're showing films all around, how do we start connecting with all these other parts of the peninsula so they're aware of what we're doing and feel like this is for them too and not just a new generation of people living in the middle of the peninsula?
How are you considering the local community and catering to them as you're building this festival?
Muller: Sam and I have our own tastes and we lean different ways, and when we build the program it's thinking about who actually would like to see these films. After the festival we have a survey. And people tell us. So the movie ends, and then we talk with everyone. It's easy to tell what a lot of people would like to see. And it's also really beautiful to see people come to something. A couple years ago, we showed Space Jam, and it was a great crowd. People were really excited. And the next day we had this incredible program of really rare short films by an under-known avant garde filmmaker that were gorgeous and durational and challenging for people who were not accustomed to that. And the same people came out, they sat through the entire thing, they asked the most intelligent, thoughtful questions, and they came back the next day. I can't say enough about the community of people who live in Rockaway.
Fleischner: I think us realizing how reverent of an audience we had and that they would actually engage with deeply challenging work was very inspiring to me. And it was one of the big things that made me think, "We've got to keep doing this, this is special."
How did this year’s program take shape?
Fleischner: The earliest thread of a theme that we started talking about was the result of our search for a permanent home and placemaking and space. So we started collecting movies we loved that fit this theme and we started losing all these key titles. We weren't able to lock those films because they hadn't played in the U.S. or in New York. But then the theme starts to morph.
Muller: I think this year is a special one, and the films continue to fit together. It's not as though this film festival is about coastal communities or whatever, but because we are thinking about the context of viewing it comes up. And this year it just so happened that Rockaway specifically came up a few different times in the films we're showing. The film we're opening with is a film that Sam and [Managing Director] Kathy [Del Beccaro] and I have discovered is one of our mutual all-time favorite films, which is Wim Wenders's Alice In the Cities. We've always wanted to show it, and this year is the 50th anniversary of the film. It's a masterpiece road movie. And the opening sequence is shot in Rockaway on 67th Street. I live on 68th Street. So it's deeply personal. And there's a plane going overhead, which is a huge part of our cinema. Sometimes the plane path is directly overhead, and that's just a part of the experience.
It's also the centennial of this pioneering animator, Faith Hubley, who I'm a longtime fan of. She's an incredible artist, Academy Award-winning, really groundbreaking. And I didn't even know this when I was engaging with Emily, her daughter, who distributes the films, but she lived in Rockaway from when she was six months to six years. We're also doing a guest program with Light Industry. They're going to show a Charlie Chaplin film. And in our discussions with them, we found out Chaplin was actually rumored to have lived in Rockaway not far from where Sam lives now. And he did definitely have his performance debut in Rockaway, which is so unusual. It's so cool to have these little points of connection to Rockaway.
And there are some environmental themes.
Muller: People who live here are acutely aware of the environment, so there's always going to be that thread within our program. It comes up a few different times. But it's not even necessarily related to Rockaway, even though we are going to be showing Sam's film which is specifically about the jetty construction in Rockaway. We're also showing a film about a really tiny island off the coast of Denmark, and the flooding they're experiencing there. It's a really gorgeous portrait. You forget that this is actually documenting real people's lives because of how cinematic it is. And then we're also showing something that's from a totally different place, the Congo, where it's flooding for totally different reasons. And we're braiding these threads, and finding ways to connect these really unusual communities that are so vibrant and resilient.
Is there one newer film you're especially excited for people to see?
Fleischner: Sleep With Your Eyes Open, which is by Nele Wohlatz. She's coming in from Germany. This film she made is wonderful. It's a great Rockaway movie because it feels so international. Being so close to the airport, Rockaway is quite a transient place. And the main character is a Taiwanese woman who goes to this beach town in Brazil, and she's kind of in this liminal place. But she's so patient and content being there. She makes connections with people and speaks different languages to different people. She's really brilliant and unassuming. And she’s just exploring identity and heritage through these postcards that she finds from someone else who was in the same area and sending them home to Taiwan.
Muller: That movie is so unique. It feels like a really fresh take on transience and the feeling of being somewhere and not being from there and trying to communicate with people who are. And that's something that a lot of people experience in Rockaway. Queens is the most diverse place in the world, and Rockaway is a good example of that. There are a lot of communities that are siloed, and a lot of different languages that are spoken. And there's this vastness of culture and language. And with Sleep With Your Eyes Open, somehow [Wohlatz] manages to plug into that feeling of being in between and trying to figure out where you belong and how you're going to communicate with someone when the most obvious form of communication — which is language — is not available.
Gabriel by Agnes Martin is the closing night film. Why should people be excited for that?
Muller: Agnes Martin was a groundbreaking, beautiful painter who was really regimented in pursuit of perfection with everything she made. And people are really surprised to discover she made films. She was interested in the medium, and excited about it. This film is not easy to show for whatever reason. It's very rarely screened. It's not what you expect when you think of an Agnes Martin painting. She's an artist who's so interested in innocence and pure happiness and childishness. And I think it's a perfect embodiment of that. She herself is just learning about the medium and being imperfect. It's an unusual film, but it's such an amazing document to think about her work and how she's interpreting the world. She was so preoccupied with the natural environment and the simple beauty of it.
It's even more wonderful that we were able to get permission to have the score live performed by Rockaway Chamber Music. Which is a really new initiative that's organized by a cellist who lives out here, Emily Brausa. She's an incredible cellist who's performed at places like the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center. She brings together, in Rockaway, these musicians who have won prizes all across the world. And they perform these incredible, breathtaking pieces. I'm so excited.
Rockaway Film Festival #7 runs August 17 - 25. More info and program here.
Listings
A feature film called Honeyjoon is casting for a couple of roles here. The roles are:
*JUNE*: late 20s - early 30s, female. Half-Persian, but born and raised in the USA. A natural beauty overflowing with hourglass curves - giving curvy Goddess energy. She's looking for whatever feels good, pushing grief away. Only interested in those with curvy / plus-size figures as this is integral to the character. We are committed to the authentic portrayal of the Persian and Persian American experience, please keep this in mind when submitting.
*LELA*: late 50s - early 60s, female. Born in Iran, had to leave after the revolution, speaks Persian-accented English. A fragile, faded natural beauty. She had a sunflower spirit, which wilted after her loss. But it's still in there, somewhere. We are committed to the authentic portrayal of the Persian and Persian American experience, please keep this in mind when submitting.
Josh Palmer is looking for a vacation type-home with some character & surrounded by nature to both shoot and house a small production team in Fall 2024 for a micro-budget feature film. Preferably within 5 hours driving of NYC. Here are inspiration images, but open to all sorts of leads! Send leads to: luxmotustempus@gmail.com.
Josh Palmer is also casting two roles for that fall-shooting feature, with descriptions here.
Neighbors, a documentary series, is searching for unique ongoing neighbor/neighborhood disputes and interesting stories. Email HelloNeighborsTV@gmail.com.
The 48 Hour Film Project, in Montreal, is looking for teams to enter and make a film this September 20 -22. Winner goes to Filmapalooza in March 2025 and is eligible for a spot in a screening at the Canes Film Festival Short Film Corner. $99 CAD to register. Email jasen48hr@gmail.com or erin48hr@gmail.com with questions.
Breanne Thomas is an LA-based producer seeking remote part-time or full-time production and post-production gigs in film and commercial. Email Bre.Thomas@gmail.com.
From Bucky Illingworth: Have an affordable / sliding scale Super 16mm package available in NYC. It's an Arri SR2, PL Mount, HD tap, 2 mags Otar Illumina Lenses (9.5, 12, 16, 25). Insurance is required for rentals but also open to work as a DP / operator. Just looking to make shooting on film more accessible for people! Email: email@bucky.website.
If you would like to list in a future issue, either A) post in the Nothing Bogus chat thread, or B) email nothingbogus1@gmail.com with the subject “Listing.” (It’s FREE!) Include your email and all relevant details (price, dates, etc.).