*Monday, April 13th
*Venue: Indoors at Chelsea Market
*Address: 75 9th Avenue
*7:00: Doors open for Stuyvesant Alumni
(Alums should RSVP to stuyvesant@rooftopfilms.com if you will be attending)
*8:15: Frontrunners starts
*Admission: no charge, but entry is first come, first served, and we do sometimes sell out.
Rooftop Films returns to the halls of Chelsea Market for a free screening of Frontrunners. Caroline Suh and Erika Frankel’s new documentary tells the story of student elections at Stuyvesant High School, one of the most prestigious public high schools in the world. Stuyvesant sends more students to the nation’s most prestigious universities than just about any other school in the country, and alumni include multiple Noble Prize laureates, string theorists, Dick Morris, David Axelrod, James Cagney, Thelonius Monk, Tim Robbins and many other notables. But their current student body is no less ambitious or eccentric, and Frontrunners puts us right in the middle of the vigorous battle for Student Council President.
An entertaining and symbolic campaign film, put forth in classic verite style, we follow four charming and idiosyncratic candidates as they navigate an electoral process that is said to be one of the most competitive at the high school level. These teenaged candidates face the same issues as candidates of any age, such as picking the “right” running mate, shaking as many hands as possible, preparing for televised debates, impressing the pundits and journalistic community, addressing sensitive race=related issues, and mobilizing an apathetic voter base.
A microcosm of the U.S. Presidential elections, Caroline Suh’s film shows politicking and pluralities throught the lens of the adolescent experience.
Doors will open for Stuyvesant Alumni at 7:00 (alums should RSVP to stuyvesant@rooftopfilms.com if you will be attending). followed by general admission at 7:30. Before the film, Miracles of Modern Science will don their spacesuits and perform some live orchestral pop, and there will be free Radebuerger Pilsner for all until it runs out.
