Rooftop Films heads up the Hudson for short film screenings |

This Saturday, October 23rd, Rooftop Films, Film Desk, and the new owners of Basilica Hudson in Hudson, New York, will be presenting a program of critically acclaimed short films centered around the themes of “Blood”, “Steel”, “Water” and “Wood”. After this screening event, the Basilica will close for renovations. This last-minute event will be the Basilica’s first and only event of 2010, featuring a program of local and nationally acclaimed short films.

Here are the details on the event:

Blood Steel Water Wood at Basilica Hudson
Date: Saturday, October 23rd, beginning at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Basilica Hudson, 110 South Front Street, Hudson, New York
Directions: Take Exit 82 off the Taconic or take Amtrak to the Hudson station.
Admission: $5 recommended donation at the door

The Films

OUT OF OUR MINDS (Tony Stone | Hudson, NY | 30 min.)
Three time periods, one connection: blood. The central characters are a woman and her car. The film follows her in a strange ritual that climaxes in a collision between past and future, crashing through the gateway to parallel worlds in the same forest. A fantasy world where a Viking heart, a car crash and a bleeding forest connect. Borrowed from mythology, the Hunt for the Heart is the eternal quest envisioned in OOOM. Conceived by musician Melissa Auf der Maur (Hole / Smashing Pumpkins) and birthed by filmmaker Tony Stone (Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America) this mini epic is proudly self-produced and shot in HD fuelled by solar power.

REISE ZUM WALD (Jorn Staeger | Germany | 7 min.)
A Journey to the Forest is a cinematic piece of poetry, a search for landscape and nature in a world in which vast forests, which once covered the land, do not exist anymore. After seeing romantic views from windows, bizarre miniature landscapes, trendy climbing facilities in the forest, old fashioned-photographic wallpapers and urban green spaces, the viewer follows the spoor of trees in the city, eventually becoming entangled in the chaotic structures of primeval forests.

SKETCHES FROM THE GREAT GULL (Nicholas Laviola | Long Island | 8 min.)
A sea-faring poet muses on Great Gull Island.

CITY OF CRANES (Ana Weber | United Kingdom | 13 min.)
Cranes dominate our skylines, yet few people ever notice them, nor do they notice the men and women who operate them. Spending most of their time alone up in the crane, crane drivers seem to merge with their machines, becoming invisible to passers-by. City of Cranes takes the viewer hundreds of feet above the ground to hear the insights of crane drivers, and see a glimpse of the poetic, mesmerizing world of cranes.

SPIRAL JETTY (Robert Smithson | Utah | 30 min.)
Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah. April 1970. Mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water coil. 1500′ long and 15′ wide

DANSE MACABRE (Pedro Pires | Canada | 8 min.)
For a period of time, while we believe it to be perfectly still, lifeless flesh responds, stirs and contorts in a final macabre ballet. Are these spasms merely erratic motions or do they echo the chaotic twists and turns of a past life?

Check out the trailer for Out of Our Minds below.