Up On The Roof

Thursday, September 11
Admission: $5, $10 minimum
Showtimes: 7:30 & 10pm
reservations are recommended

UP ON THE ROOF
Produced + directed by JL Aronson
Music by Oneida, Willie Villegas y Entre Amigos, and the Drifters

For centuries, man has raised pigeons for a variety of purposes: sport, communication and even cuisine. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, most of the guys you see on rooftops ‘chasing’ their flocks with makeshift flags and practiced whistles do it for the sheer pleasure of the birds’ company. ‘Up on the Roof’ is the first film to take the viewer into the heart of Williamsburg’s Southside and the pigeon-keeping subculture that has existed there since the area was first founded. While many urban residents have noticed the ornithological phenomenon and may even be able to point out a coop in their neighborhood, few know the story behind the dedicated keepers of the birds. Now their tales can be told.

The story of the pigeon keepers is at once a story of the neighborhood and its ever transforming demographics. While European immigrants from Germany, Italy and Poland first established Williamsburg’s lively pigeon community, the practice was passed down to neighborhood kids in the 50s and 60s as the Latin wave brought Puerto Ricans and Dominicans to Brooklyn’s waterfront. More recently, the population has shifted again and the number of pigeon coops is plummeting.

This colorful, urban-wildlife film considers what we lose in the process of urban renewal and treats the audience like an insider in an unseen and —in many ways— vanishing world.