Mark Street's film CITY WALK, made for Jon Gartenberg, screened at The Film-Makers' Cooperative on October 28th

MARK STREET’S 16mm FILm CITY WALK SCREENING AT THE NEW YORK FILM-MAKERS’ COOPERATIVE ON OCTOBER 28th, 2025.

PROGRAM POSTER FOR THE REFRACTED CITY.

On Tuesday, October 28th, The Film-Makers’ Cooperative presented a program of recent city-themed films by Mark Street, as well as an accompanying program of older city-themed works from the Coop’s collection co-curated by Street and GME associate Matt McKinzie. The program was titled THE REFRACTED CITY and showcased Street’s films RIVER OF DAYS, LUNETTE, ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT, CLEAR ICE FERN, THE GRAIN OF BELFAST and DESCENT, alongside Marie Menken’s GO GO GO, Donna Deitch’s SHE WAS A VISITOR, Rudy Burckhardt’s SQUARE TIMES, Stan Brakhage’s THE WONDER RING, and Rick Liss’ NO YORK CITY.

GME President Jon Gartenberg curated numerous films by Street while working as a programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival from 2003 to 2014. Gartenberg once noted, about Street’s films: “The globe is Mark Street’s cinematic canvas onto which he impresses shimmering reflections and lyric montage sequences.” Gartenberg later joined Street on a day of filming in New York City, as part of an experience with a filmmaker that he won at an auction at The Film-Makers’ Cooperative. The resulting 16mm work — which Street titled CITY WALK — is a unique, one-of-a-kind piece in GME’s archive of experimental filmmakers’ work.

CITY WALK was included as a surprise addition to Street’s program at the Coop. Gartenberg wrote a heartfelt note about the experience of making CITY WALK with Street, which McKinzie read on his behalf. The note read:

I first met Mark when I was programming experimental films for the Tribeca Film Festival. Mark created a beautiful experimental city symphony documentary entitled FULTON FISH MARKET. In ensuing editions of the festival, we screened his feature-length fiction documentary hybrid entitled ROCKAWAY. I especially remember his film A YEAR, which is a soulful confessional about a year in his life. Mark always seemed in his filmmaking to tap into the gestalt of the times, which made it easy to integrate his movies into the festival lineup. As for the Coop… I was a terrible filmmaker in college, so I always chose, during the Coop’s benefits, an experience with a filmmaker. Mark and I went on a journey together in Chinatown as he spontaneously filmed people, buildings, and those twirling, glinting objects that he so beautifully captured. He asked if I wanted to film anything — however, I wanted to leave the cinematic imprints on the celluloid film completely in Mark’s creative hands. This is the short film that you are seeing tonight. Thank you Mark for gracing me with this indelible record of our city symphony journey together. Love, Jon.

Mark Street’s CITY WALK is part of GME’s collection of unique artworks by experimental filmmakers. We are pleased to present the film in full here: