Rooftop Films: 'The Wolfpack' - Living Inside and Outside of a Cinema Reality

Director Crystal Moselle and the Angulo Brothers, stars of the documentary,The Wolfpack

 

Opening later this week, The Wolfpack had its NYC premier at Rooftop Films at Industry City in Brooklyn's Sunset Park. The film follows the emergence of the Angulo Brothers from a cloistered family life in their parents' Loisaida NYCHA apartment into what will certainly be even wider celebrity status following the film's opening. Through director Moselle's footage and extensive family home movies we watch the guys stage Batman, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and other films as their homeschooled homebound childhood/adolescence served as the stage setting for a UCLA- USC- or NYU-worthy cinema education. 

Although they were prevented from venturing out into the Mean Streets by their parents they had extensive access to films and videos. But it wasn't clear if they had exposure to mass media as the boys did not have access to computers or presumably the web and only recently learned of Google as a verb.

The limitations of their early lives seemed so extreme that their skillful use of language and art and their film knowledges had me momentarily wondering if this would prove to be some  kind of hoax. But then although they appeared fairly comfortable and adept at handling the post-screening Q & A with their director, what seems like a fairy tale with a happy ending is clearly a more complex and human story as it appears they are continuing to take major and difficult steps toward independence and socialization in the larger world though now with the support of their proud and warm mom.

 

The Wolfpack opens in NYC on June 12. The Rooftop Films 2015 season, off to a bang up start,continues. http://rooftopfilms.com/

The evening opened with a cool and dreamlike performance by Nicholas Nicholas. The band's understated melodic explorations were a great counterpoint as Night fell over NYC and the planet Venus appeared in the late spring sky.

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn