April 18, 2024

Warren Sonbert's HOLIDAY Plays in Chicago In "Tone Glow Presents Pop Music as Prismatic Utopia"

April 18, 2024/ Jon Gartenberg

This Friday, April 19th, at 7pm, writer and programmer Joshua Minsoo Kim will screen Warren Sonbert’s FRIENDLY WITNESS in the second film program presented by his experimental music newsletter Tone Glow, titled Pop Music in Prismatic Utopia. The program will play at Chicago’s Sweet Void Cinema, a production company and microcinema located in Humboldt Park. GME is proud to represent the work and legacy of Sonbert, whose films — as evidenced by Kim’s program and a number of other screenings and retrospectives within recent years — have been experiencing a renaissance. FRIENDLY WITNESS, in particular, is a significant title in Sonbert’s oeuvre, as it demarcates his return to sound after many years of making silent montage films.

March 05, 2024

February 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

March 05, 2024/ Jon Gartenberg

Happy March from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! Today, we’re reflecting on screenings, events, and celebrations from February, in New York City and beyond, related to GME colleagues, as well as titles and/or artists in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. Notably, films by French cinema icons Jackie Raynal and Philippe Garrel screened at Anthology Film Archives, while CARRIAGE TRADE, the magnum opus of Warren Sonbert — whose work and legacy GME is proud to represent — returned to the Centre Pompidou 48 years after it was first shown there.

February 21, 2024

Warren Sonbert's Magnum Opus CARRIAGE TRADE Plays at the Centre Pompidou

February 21, 2024/ Jon Gartenberg

Today, Warren Sonbert’s film CARRIAGE TRADE — which the artist himself described as his “magnum opus” — will screen at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Sonbert’s film plays in their exhibition A History of Cinema, which “draws an alternative narrative to the dominant cinematic canons and constitutes the founding moment of the Museum’s film collection.” CARRIAGE TRADE is currently distributed on 16mm by the Film-Makers’ Cooperative in New York, Canyon Cinema in San Francisco, and Light Cone in Paris. GME is the custodian of Sonbert’s legacy and proud to represent his significant body of work.

November 15, 2023

October 2023 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

November 15, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

Happy November from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! As we head into the holiday season, we’re looking back at events, screenings, and celebrations from last month, in New York City and beyond, related to colleagues of GME as well as films and/or filmmakers in our collection. October’s events offered a unique selection of GME artists and friends, from Dominic Angerame and James Benning, to Jeff Preiss and Jerome Hiler, both of whom were collaborators of Warren Sonbert, whose body of work GME exclusively represents.

November 14, 2023

Light Cone Presents the Third Edition of "Scratch Collection" Film Festival

November 14, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

Beginning on October 3rd of this year, Light Cone presented the third edition of their film festival Scratch Collection. GME has a long-standing relationship with Light Cone. While working as a film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, Jon Gartenberg sat in on screenings when the company was being formed in 1982 in Yann Beauvais and Miles McKane’s apartment. Later, Gartenberg acquired films of Beauvais’ for MoMA’s permanent collection. We are currently working with Emmanuel Lefrant, the director of Light Cone, to distribute the international touring program of films by Warren Sonbert.

October 26, 2023

Jeff Preiss Show at Columbia Runs Through October 30th

October 26, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

Multimedia artist Jeff Preiss presented a video installation at Columbia University’s CCCP@10 book and film launch, which opened on October 5th of this month and runs through October 30th. GME President Jon Gartenberg and Fine Arts Curator David Deitch were in attendance at the October 5th launch. Preiss was a student of filmmaker Warren Sonbert, whose films GME exclusively represents.

October 13, 2023

GME Remembers Senator Dianne Feinstein This LGBTQ+ History Month

October 13, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

GME remembers Senator Dianne Feinstein, who passed away on September 29th at the age of 90. Feinstein was celebrated for her advocacy, in general, of the queer community and LGBTQ+ rights. She was also captured on film by Warren Sonbert, an experimental filmmaker whose work included depictions of gay life on screen, as well as encoded in the subtext of a number of his films, and whose films are exclusively represented by Gartenberg Media Enterprises. Feinstein appears briefly in Sonbert’s 1981 film NOBLESSE OBLIGE, described by GME President Jon Gartenberg as “a masterfully edited work that features imagery Sonbert photographed of protests in San Francisco following the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Councilman Harvey Milk at the hands of White.”

October 12, 2023

Jerome Hiler Retrospective at Berkeley Art Museum This Month

October 12, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

Since September, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive has hosted a retrospective of the work of experimental filmmaker, painter, and stained glass artist Jerome Hiler. Hiler appears with his partner Nathaniel Dorsky in the work of Warren Sonbert, whose catalogue of experimental films, dating back to the 1960s, is exclusively represented by Gartenberg Media Enterprises. Notably, Hiler and Dorsky show up in the final sequences of Sonbert’s THE TENTH LEGION (1967) and NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981).

October 10, 2023

September 2023 Roundup of Screenings Related to GME's DSL, DVD, & Blu-ray Offerings

October 10, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

Happy Autumn from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! As we enter October, we’re looking back at a myriad of screenings from last month, in New York City and beyond, featuring films and/or filmmakers in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. GME-associated artists were well-represented in September — from pioneering filmmakers like Ida Lupino, Jean-Luc Godard, Jose Val Del Omar, Maya Deren, and Man Ray, to contemporary artists like Karel Doing, Rose Lowder, and Lav Diaz. The work of Warren Sonbert, which is exclusively represented by GME, was also screened in various venues in September.

September 18, 2023

Warren Sonbert's FRIENDLY WITNESS Screens at NYU

September 18, 2023/ Jon Gartenberg

On Friday, September 22nd, 2023, at 7pm, Warren Sonbert’s 1989 “musical montage” film FRIENDLY WITNESS will screen at New York University, at 721 Broadway Room 674, as part of Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) student Andrew Reichel’s program Three by Three by Three Hundred: Rare 16mm Films. GME represents the work and legacy of Warren Sonbert, and currently distributes five of his films as DSL downloads: AMPHETAMINE (1966), THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1967), HALL OF MIRRORS (1966), THE TENTH LEGION (1967), and WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? (1966). FRIENDLY WITNESS, along with the rest of Sonbert’s montage films, will become available for institutional acquisition and rental through GME in the near future.

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