April 2025 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues
/Today we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from April related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. Notably, films by Warren Sonbert screened at Anthology Film Archives and Doc Films at the University of Chicago, while a program of city symphony films co-curated by GME President Jon Gartenberg screened at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. GME also presented the readymade exhibition Jack Mitchell: Artists, in honor of Mitchell’s centennial, and announced the publication of Volume 64, No. 2, of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, which is comprised of contemporaneous writings, stills, and ephemera related to Sonbert’s early films, combined with Gartenberg’s original writing.
SELECTIONS FROM JACK MITCHELL: ARTISTS. ALL PHOTOGRAPHS © THE ESTATE OF JACK MITCHELL.
April 2nd — GME
Photographer Jack Mitchell would have turned 100 years old in 2025. In recognition of the centennial of this creative and historically significant artist, GME now offers a series of readymade exhibitions that showcase Mitchell’s extensive photographic oeuvre. On April 2nd, GME highlighted the exhibition Jack Mitchell: Artists, which features over 50 silver gelatin and color photographs of noteworthy American visual, musical, and literary talents. This show first opened on May 16, 2021, at the Adtran, Jurenko & Thurber Galleries at the Huntsville Museum of Art, and is currently available to galleries, museums, and other cultural institutions both in the U.S. and abroad.
FILMMAKER WARREN SONBERT. SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
April 9th — GME
In recent years, the work of filmmaker Warren Sonbert has experienced a renaissance among film critics, scholars, cinephiles, and the general public. Sonbert’s films have proven especially popular with younger audiences around the globe who are discovering his work for the first time. On April 9th, GME reflected on the various programs, retrospectives, and publications related to Sonbert and his work that have occurred within the past few years.
STILL: WARREN SONBERT’S CARRIAGE TRADE (1973). SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
April 12th — Anthology Film Archives
On Saturday, April 12th, at 7:30pm, Warren Sonbert’s CARRIAGE TRADE screened at Anthology Film Archives as part of their Essential Cinema series, “a special series of films screened on a repertory basis… assembled in 1970—75 by Anthology’s Film Selection Committee — James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, P. Adams Sitney, and Jonas Mekas.” Sonbert considered the 61-minute version of CARRIAGE TRADE, completed in 1973, to be his “magnum opus.”
(L-R): STILLS FROM WARREN SONBERT’S FRIENDLY WITNESS (1989), HALL OF MIRRORS (1966), and THE CUP AND THE LIP (1986). © The Estate of Warren Sonbert.
April 13th — Doc Films
On Sunday, April 13th, at 7pm, three films by Warren Sonbert — 1966’s HALL OF MIRRORS, 1986’s THE CUP AND THE LIP, and 1989’s FRIENDLY WITNESS — screened at Doc Films at the University of Chicago on 16mm. This program was introduced by film scholar Fred Camper, who has written extensively about Sonbert’s films, and screened as part of a larger Doc Films series curated by Hannah Yang, titled Encounters in the Cinema. Yang describes the series as “draw[ing] attention to… the way in which both film and spectator shape each other, and cinema as a whole, in the dark space of the movie theater.”
STILL: CHARLES SHEELER AND PAUL STRAND’S MANHATTA (1921). SOURCE: MOMA.
April 17th — NYPL
On Thursday, April 17th, at 5:30pm, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presented the program In The Streets in the Bruno Walter Auditorium. Curated by GME President Jon Gartenberg with Elena Rossi-Snook, NYPL’s Reserve Film and Video Collection Specialist, this screening explored the spirit and structure of the “city symphony” film.
FRAMEWORK: THE JOURNAL OF CINEMA AND MEDIA, VOLUME 64, NO. 2. SOURCE: WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS. COVER DESIGNED BY JON GARTENBERG, MATT MCKINZIE, AND JAMES PEARSON.
April 24th — GME
Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to announce the publication of Volume 64, No. 2, of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, which is devoted to writings about the early films of Warren Sonbert. Jon Gartenberg was named the custodian of Sonbert’s legacy, and since Sonbert's passing, GME has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute, and curate career retrospectives of his work on an international basis. Furthermore, GME has facilitated the publication of original documents from his paper archive, which is now housed at Harvard University. This journal is Framework’s second issue devoted to Sonbert’s life and career. Volume 56, No. 1, published in Spring 2015, focused on Sonbert’s own writings. Gartenberg served as Guest Editor on both Framework issues.