City Living: Open Roof Festival

Last week we had the pleasure of checking out Bruce MacDonald’s Trigger, at the Open Roof Festival, Toronto’s best outdoor film and music series. Kicking off its sophomore season, the festival runs every Thursday until September 1 and treats Torontonians to a performance by a local indie band, followed by a cool film, all outside at the Amsterdam Brewery. 

 Image source.

We really loved being able to bike to the venue, where the Toronto Cyclist Union provided complimentary valet bike parking. Festival goers can also enjoy various pints of Amsterdam beer (including the new 416 Urban Wheat beer), freshly popped popcorn or can bring their own snacks while watching the film.

Image source.

Many of the films have previously shown at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals including Sundance, Hot Docs and TIFF, and have not yet been commercially released in Canada. Next movie we’re uber stoked for? On August 11, ORF will play Conan O’Brien’s Can’t Stop, a documentary chronicling O’Brien’s life after losing his gig as the host of The Tonight Show. 

Image source.

Make sure to bring a sweater in case it cools down at night, grab a beer, and hang out at the Amsterdam Brewery while enjoying some good music and great films.

Tickets are available for $15 and can be purchased at www.openrooffestival.com 

Follow Open Roof Festival on Twitter at: @OpenRoofFest

PS: This week’s screening of Kick Ass is gonna be a good one too – and our own Matt Austin will be hosting the evening. In his words “The main actor, Aaron Johnston, will be a huge star by 2012. See him now.” See you there!
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;}