Free Outdoor Films: Rule-Breakers & Troublemakers

UPDATE: SET IT OFF WILL BEGIN AT 8PM ON SEP­TEM­BER 1 INSTEAD OF 8:30PM

Free out­door films on the Parade Ground return to Gov­er­nors Island for Sum­mer 2023! ​“Rule Break­ers and Trou­ble­mak­ers” will fea­ture screen­ings of F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off, Steven Soder­bergh’s Out of Sight, and Gurinder Chad­ha’s Bend It Like Beck­ham. Screen­ings are free and open to the pub­lic with pre-show enter­tain­ment from Half Moon kick­ing off at 7:30pm. Food and drink is avail­able for pur­chase at the Parade Ground from Piz­za Yard and Kinky Taco Truck. 

Fer­ries oper­at­ed by the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island will leave from the Bat­tery Mar­itime Build­ing in Low­er Man­hat­tan at 6:15, 6:45, 7:15, 7:45, and 8:15pm. Trust-oper­at­ed fer­ries will return to Low­er Man­hat­tan from Sois­sons Land­ing at 9, 9:30, 10, 10:30 and 11pm. Click here to reserve fer­ry tickets.

Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 1, 8PM: Set It Off
RESCHED­ULED FROM FRI­DAY, JUNE 9
F. Gary Gray, 1996, USA, 124m

For­mer bank teller Frankie (Vive­ca A. Fox) is strug­gling to make ends meet, work­ing a low-pay­ing job as a jan­i­tor along­side close friends Cleo (Queen Lat­i­fah), Stony (Jada Pin­kett Smith), and T.T. (Kim­ber­ly Elise) in mid-’90s Los Ange­les. When the four women, angered and demor­al­ized by the sta­tus quo of relent­less injus­tice that cur­tails and under­mines their aspi­ra­tions, set about sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly rob­bing banks around the city, com­pli­ca­tions soon arise in the dis­parate forms of their tyran­ni­cal boss (Thomas Jef­fer­son Byrd), an unsym­pa­thet­ic LAPD detec­tive (John C. McGin­ley), and a bud­ding romance between Stony and a charm­ing bank man­ag­er (Blair Under­wood). Direc­tor F. Gary Gray infus­es the heist genre with brac­ing emo­tion­al clar­i­ty, sen­si­tive­ly yet unsen­ti­men­tal­ly dra­ma­tiz­ing the chal­lenges faced by work­ing-class women of col­or who are forced to nav­i­gate an unac­cept­ably inhos­pitable socioe­co­nom­ic reality.

Pre­sent­ed by Gov­er­nors Island Arts and Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter, with sup­port from the Friends of Gov­er­nors Island. Curat­ed by Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter and pro­duced by Rooftop Films. 

Fri­day, July 7: Out of Sight
Steven Soder­bergh, 1998, USA, 123m

Razor-sharp wit and expert­ly deployed star wattage — not to men­tion crack­ling sex­u­al chem­istry between the two leads — were in abun­dant sup­ply when Steven Soder­bergh burst into the main­stream, direct­ing Scott Frank’s ultra-cool adap­ta­tion of Elmore Leonard’s 1996 nov­el. George Clooney is Jack Foley, a career bank rob­ber on the run after break­ing out of a Flori­da pen­i­ten­tiary; Jen­nifer Lopez is U.S. Mar­shal Karen Sis­co, the no-non­sense law enforce­ment offi­cer who’s deter­mined to put Foley back behind bars. Along­side a stacked sup­port­ing cast that also includes Ving Rhames, Don Chea­dle, Albert Brooks, and Vio­la Davis in one of her ear­li­est film roles, Clooney and Lopez bring humor and heat to a sin­gu­lar­ly sexy game of cat-and-mouse as Foley makes his way to Detroit in pur­suit of a rumored stash of dia­monds, with Sis­co in hot pur­suit. Edit­ed with wry pre­ci­sion by the leg­endary Anne V. Coates, Soderbergh’s sev­enth fea­ture is a mas­ter class in smart, ensem­ble-dri­ven genre film­mak­ing, and remains a relent­less­ly enter­tain­ing crowd-pleas­er 25 years after its release.

Fri­day, August 11: Bend It Like Beck­ham
Gurinder Chad­ha, 2002, U.K./Germany/USA, 112m
Eng­lish, Pun­jabi, Hin­di, and Ger­man with Eng­lish subtitles

British Indi­an direc­tor Gurinder Chadha’s third fea­ture tells the sto­ry of teenag­er Jess Bham­ra (Par­min­der Nagra in a win­ning break­out per­for­mance), an avid soc­cer fan, dreams of liv­ing up to the exam­ple of her idol, star play­er David Beck­ham, against the wish­es of her cul­tur­al­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Pun­jabi elders. When new friend Jules (Keira Knight­ley) per­suades her to join the local women’s team with­out her par­ents’ knowl­edge, Jess quick­ly wins the accep­tance and respect of her team­mates and their coach (Jonathan Rhys Mey­ers), but must strug­gle to rec­on­cile her pas­sion for the game with her family’s expec­ta­tions. In the 21 years since its U.K. release, Chadha’s film — which remains the high­est-gross­ing soc­cer film of all time, and boasts scene-steal­ing sup­port­ing per­for­mances by Anu­pam Kher, Archie Pun­jabi, and Juli­et Steven­son — has con­tin­ued to be hailed as a lat­ter-day clas­sic of its inter­sect­ing gen­res, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly excelling as crowd-pleas­ing sports movie, win­ning roman­tic com­e­dy, and heart­felt cross-cul­tur­al com­ing-of-age fable.