2022 Rooftop Films Summer Series

The Summer Series runs annually from May through August and features daring new films, all screened outdoors, in front of big, loyal audiences in parks, on boats, and on rooftops overlooking the greatest city in the world. Tens of thousands of people attend Rooftop screenings every summer, making it one of the most popular festivals in New York City and one of the biggest festivals for independent films in the world.

In 2021, we celebrated our 25th annual Summer Series—our signature program of new, independent films—and we have every intention of hosting in-person screenings again in 2022! We are looking forward to bringing films to live, in-person audiences again this summer!

Requirements

Rules and Guidelines
Rooftop Films is committed to providing a venue, an audience, and a community for the wide array of short and feature length films that are under-served by conventional commercial distributors, industry festivals, art galleries, and repertory theaters. We want films that tell us about where and how you live. We seek independent movies with original ideas. We screen the work of experienced professionals, long-time amateurs, and first-time filmmakers alike. We strongly encourage women, veterans, people with disabilities, people of color and gender nonconforming filmmakers to submit to our festival.

We show films of all genres, formats, and lengths, as long as they’re daring, creative, and unique. We always search for films that break down boundaries or feature innovative, personal, and eccentric or hilarious takes on old forms. We love animation, satire, comedies and dramas, experimental and abstract films, personal and political documentaries, and every other form of film, entertainment or video art.

We screen hundreds of short and feature length films each summer and work tirelessly year round to bring these films to new audiences.

If you have any questions regarding submissions, please email submit@rooftopfilms.com

Categories

• Fiction Features are features length films, sixty minutes and longer. We screen dozens of feature length films each summer.
• Fiction Short Films are short films 59 minutes and under. We screen over 100 short films each summer.
• Documentary Features are non-fiction feature length films, sixty minutes and longer. We screen dozens of feature length documentaries each summer.
• Documentary Short Films are non-fiction short films, 59 minutes and under. We screen over 100 short films each summer.