NOW PLAYING: Joel Singer's POET IN ORBIT (1980)

/

September 22, 2026 marked the opening of the George Lucas Museum in Los Angeles, California. Joel Singer’s rarely-screened solo work POET IN ORBIT (1980), which features footage of James Broughton, was selected to screen in the Museum’s inaugural exhibition. To commemorate this event, GME is pleased to present POET IN ORBIT this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room.

POET IN ORBIT joins several other titles by Broughton and Singer in our distribution library, which are now available for rental or purchase to academic and cultural institutions worldwide. To learn more about those titles, please visit Big Joy: The Films of James Broughton and Joel Singer.

POET IN ORBIT was filmed in 1980 in Broughton and Singer’s home in Novato, California. It consists of 16mm footage Singer shot of Broughton, who was seated on a swivel chair. In the film, Broughton turns the chair ever so slightly from left to right and right to left, until completing a 360-degree circle, with Singer capturing each movement frame-by-frame.

As noted by Singer: ““It took most of a week to film the two minutes. James got dizzy but we persisted... I showed Lou Harrison [the composer] the silent film and he created the fabulous gamelan soundtrack. The film has been seen by very few people. It was never in distribution and was essentially lost until I discovered it in my digital files. James and I used a brief excerpt of the film in our film SCATTERED REMAINS (1988) and a very brief excerpt of it was used in the wonderful documentary on James' life, BIG JOY.”

NOW PLAYING: Steve Bilich's NATIVE NEW YORKER

/
NOW PLAYING: Steve Bilich's NATIVE NEW YORKER

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Gartenberg Media presents Steve Bilich's Native New Yorker to view, for free, in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room throughout the month of September.  Over two decades since 9/11, Bilich's film remains a powerful cinematic work, political statement, and educational tool. Shot on a Cine-Kodak camera, it is likely the only 16mm film documentation of the event, which was otherwise captured on video — the dominant format of the time.

Read More

NOW PLAYING: Péter Lichter THE GENEVA MECHANISM: A GHOST MOVIE

/
NOW PLAYING: Péter Lichter THE GENEVA MECHANISM: A GHOST MOVIE

In August, GME announced its move towards focusing on the distribution of film titles from our library on digital formats. As the educational film market has shifted from 16mm film distribution to DVD and Blu-ray editions, and most recently streaming, the contours of film history are being radically reshaped. Well-known films are now re-released in new, high-quality digital transfers by film archives and boutique publishers, and lesser-known films from the course of moving image history are made available for the first time in digital formats. More recently, with the rise of Covid-19 and the shift to remote teaching, the demand for server-based digital media over disk distribution has grown, and librarians have been tasked with rethinking the physical moving image format for their acquisition programs. In recognition of these technological changes, as well as the malleability and evolution of the filmic medium at large, GME is proud to present Péter Lichter’s timely and fascinating short film THE GENEVA MECHANISM: A GHOST MOVIE in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room this month.

Read More