Rooftop Films Presents Florian Habicht's PULP: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets, 8/7

Rooftop Films is excited to present Florian Habicht's film PULP: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets, with special guests Florian Habicht and PULP frontman Jarvis Cocker in attendance. One of the most influential bands to come out of the '90s, PULP is captured in the intimate and imaginative documentary as they prepare for the final show in their beloved hometown of Sheffield, England. The film will be released in theaters by Oscilloscope Laboratories in November.

PULP's charismatic frontman Jarvis Cocker will be on hand for a Q&A session, as well as playing celebrity judge to a post-film karaoke contest. Mondo, called "the gold standard for New York indiepop", will bring their famous dance party DJs to kick off the night, and New Amsterdam Gin & Vodka will help fuel the after party.

Following the Q and A, there will be a Pulp fan karanioke contest, and fans can tweet to @RooftopFilms with the hashtag #singforjarvis and make their case for why they should be chosen as one of the select few who will get the chance to perform a Pulp song for Jarvis Cocker and Florian Habicht. Anyone chosen to perform will get two free tickets to the event and the winner of the karaoke contest will be awarded special prizes by Cocker and Habicht. Tweets must be sent by Monday, August 4 at noon and the winning contestants will be chosen that day. Details of the contest are available at http://rooftopfilms.com/blog/2014/07/jarvis-cocker-wants-to-judge-your-karaoke.html.

Film Details:

8:00PM - Doors Open

8:30PM - DJ set by Mondo

9:00PM - Film Begins

10:45PM - Q&A with filmmaker Florian Habicht and Jarvis Cocker

11:00PM - After Party sponsored by New Amsterdam Spirits with Pulp Karaoke Contest judged by

Venue: On the roof and in the courtyard of Industry City: 220 36th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232

More info: http://rooftopfilms.com/2014/schedule/pulp-a-film-about-life-death-and-supermarkets/

Florian Habicht (Love Story) returns to the roof with a lovingly crafted portrait of Pulp, the sexy/nerdy Sheffield rock group that struggled through the 80's, soared to superstardom in the mid 90's and then reunited in 2012 for a celebratory final tour. Habicht follows lead singer Jarvis Cocker, an eccentric and cheeky Everyman, as he and his band prepare for their ultimate performance in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans in their native city. The resulting film, like Jarvis' lyrics, overflows with bittersweet memories, unexpected moments, and the understanding that life and death can be made immensely more bearable with the indulgence of tiny fantasies.

Pulp is most famous for their mega hit "Common People," an exuberant anthem sung in the voice of a working class kid recounting a night of erotic accomplishment with a slumming heiress. The song is ingeniously constructed and exuberantly performed, and it immediately grabs your ear and makes you want to sing along and dance and f. But "Common People" is sung in The Past tense, and the implication is that the Morning after none of this worked out for the best and that the narrator-like most of the rest of us-will return to a world of work and struggle and disappointment. Most of the city of Sheffield lives their lives within that disappointing Morning after, but as they talk to Habicht about Cocker, one gets the sense that they relish having had the chance to live vicariously through their native son, almost as if each of the decadent gestures of his wildest years were in some way performed on their behalf.

Habicht builds upon his previous work by continuing to mine the comic and emotional possibilities of the candid on-the-street interview. The true stars of this film are not the band mates, but rather the people of Sheffield, and Cocker wisely allows Habicht to shift the spotlight away from the stage and onto the faces of the struggling dreamers in the crowd. It is their observations that carry the film, and the most powerful performance in the film does not occur on stage, but rather in a small local cafe where a room-full of aging residents sing a devastatingly poignant cover of Help The Aged. Pulp: A Film About Life, Death And Supermarkets is at once a raucous concert film, a celebratory portrait of a place and time, and a bittersweet farewell to a town that shaped-and was shaped by-a band of dreamers with dirty minds and open, fragile hearts.

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