By Lincoln Anderson
Volume 78 / Number 3 – June 18 – 24, 2008
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since
From left, Scott Dillen, Henry Stern and Ed Koch at the Rooftop Films showing of “Captured.”
Who needs Tribeca if your theater’s an L.E.S. rooftop?
One thousand one hundred people watched last Friday night’s screening of “Captured,” the documentary film about Lower East Side documentarian Clayton Patterson, at Rooftop Films atop New Design High School — the former Seward Park High School — at Grand and Essex Sts. Among them were, Scott Dillen, Henry Stern and Ed Koch. During the clashes between police and radical activists in Tompkins Square in 1988, Koch was New York’s mayor, Stern was Parks Department commissioner and Gillen was a narcotics detective policing on the Lower East Side. Koch and Dillen both are featured in “Captured.”
“It was a young crowd, they were from high school to 35,” said Patterson of the rooftop showing. “We had three screens, there was a nice, cool breeze, you could see the moon, and, you know, we were sitting out there in the open.”
The film was directed by Dan Levin, Ben Solomon and Jenner Furst, who, judging by the turnout, have built quite a following.
“We had more people attend this movie than any movie that was in Tribeca Film Festival,” boasted Patterson, whose documentary was rejected by the trendy festival. “Let DeNiro and Scorsese have the Rolling Stones and Hollywood — these three young directors have found their own youth market on their own. Tribeca [Film Festival] now is only about fame and money,” he said. “What about the next generation of New York City filmmakers?”
The Lower East Side rooftop even also featured a live band.
“Let Scorsese and DeNiro have their own geriatric rock-and-rollers,” Patterson scoffed, taking a shot at Scorsese’s new Stones film. “We’ll be happy with A.R.E. Weapons — the rock group we had play.”
