June 2025 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues
/Today we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from June related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. Notably, GME publicly presented the World Premiere digital restorations of a selection of the early films of Warren Sonbert at Metrograph on June 8th. GME also attended the 2025 Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards, which honored two of our longtime friends and colleaugues: Jim Hubbard and James Wentzy. Furthermore, GME screened Allan King’s groundbreaking documentary WARRENDALE this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room.
KEY ART FOR ADOLFAS MEKAS’ HALLELUJAH THE HILLS (1963). SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
June 1st — Anthology Film Archives
Throughout the first week of June, Anthology Film Archives celebrated Adolfas Mekas’ centennial by programming a number of his films, as well as works by his brother Jonas Mekas and wife Pola Chapelle. Adolfas’ feature HALLELUJAH OF THE HILLS (1963), as well as his collaboration with Pola, GOING HOME (1971), and Jonas’ films GUNS OF THE TREES (1957) and THE BRIG (1964), were included in this celebration. HALLELUJAH THE HILLS and GUNS OF THE TREES are currently distributed by GME as DVDs and DSL files to North American universities. GME also distributes THE BRIG on DSL, and in the DVD boxset JONAS MEKAS: THE EARLY WORKS. GOING HOME is likewise available from GME as a DSL file.
GME PRESIDENT JON GARTENBERG AND FILMMAKER AND ACTIVIST JAMES WENTZY AT THE VISUAL AIDS VANGUARD AWARDS ON JUNE 3rd, 2025.
June 3rd — SVA Theatre
GME President Jon Gartenberg, GME Fine Arts Curator David Deitch, and GME Associate Matt McKinzie were thrilled to attend the 2025 Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards on Tuesday, June 3rd, at the SVA Theatre. Among this year’s honorees were filmmaker and activist Jim Hubbard, whose film ELEGY IN THE STREETS is distributed digitally by GME to North American universities. Filmmaker and activist James Wentzy was also honored at this event; Gartenberg programmed Wentzy’s first feature-length documentary FIGHT BACK, FIGHT AIDS in the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. Click on the link above to view photographs of, Gartenberg, Wentzy, Deitch, McKinzie, and Hubbard at SVA for the occasion, as well as a photograph, taken by Wentzy in 2012, that is part of GME’s treasured collection of visual art by experimental filmmakers.
(L-R): Jon Gartenberg, Jeff Scher, Barbara Hodes, and Matt McKinzie during the post-screening panel discussion for Love and Joy, Warren Sonbert AT METROGRAPH, ON JUNE 8th, 2025.
June 8th — Metrograph
On Sunday, June 8th, Gartenberg Media Enterprises publicly presented the World Premiere digital restorations of a selection of the early films of Warren Sonbert (1947-1995) at Metrograph in New York City: WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?, AMPHETAMINE, HALL OF MIRRORS (all 1966) and CARRIAGE TRADE (1973), as well as Jeff Scher’s POSTCARDS FROM WARREN (1998) and WARREN (1991). We were delighted to welcome colleagues, friends, and family of Sonbert, GME, and the Film-Makers' Cooperative to this special event, which also launched the return of Sonbert's films to distribution at the Coop in digital format. All of these digital restorations were created with the intent of making Sonbert's films more accessible to a wide audience. Following the screening and discussion, we were joined by friends, family, and colleagues at Cafe Katja for a lively reception.
ORIGINAL THEATRICAL RELEASE POSTER FOR WARRENDALE (1967).
June 12th — GME
Allan King made his feature film directorial debut with the 1967 documentary WARRENDALE, which screened last month, starting on June 12th, in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room. In WARRENDALE, King visits a home for young people living with mental illness located in the suburbs of Toronto. As described by Criterion: “Situated inside the facility like a fly on the wall, we witness the full spectrum of emotions displayed by twelve fascinating children and the caregivers trying to nurture and guide them.” One of the many champions of WARRENDALE was Adrienne Mancia, who later introduced King’s film at The Museum of Modern Art while she was working there as a curator. Scans of her original, typewritten introductory remarks — featuring her own handwritten edits — can be viewed, alongside King's film, in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room.
J. HOBERMAN’S BOOK EVERYTHING IS NOW: THE 1960s NEW YORK AVANT GARDE — PRIMAL HAPPENINGS, UNDERGROUND MOVIES, RADICAL POP
June 20th — Anthology Film Archives
From June 20th to the 24th, eminent film critic and cultural historian J. Hoberman guest curated a film series at Anthology Film Archives that reflected the artists, aesthetic ideas, and political convictions explored in his new book, EVERYTHING IS NOW: THE 1960s NEW YORK AVANT-GARDE—PRIMAL HAPPENINGS, UNDERGROUND MOVIES, RADICAL POP. Included in Hoberman’s programming were Jonas Mekas’ films THE BRIG (1964) and AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (1964), as well as Peter Emmanuel Goldman’s documentary PESTILENT CITY (1965). GME distributes THE BRIG and AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL to North American universities as DSL files; THE BRIG is also available in the DVD boxset JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS. PESTILENT CITY is included as a bonus feature on GME’s DVD and DSL publication of Goldman’s debut film ECHOES OF SILENCE, made the same year.
STILL: GUNVOR NELSON’S TAKE OFF (1972).
June 27th — The Museum of Modern Art
On June 27th, MM Serra and Erica Schreiner’s month-long survey of queer film and video, titled Queer and Uncensored, concluded at MoMA. This extensive series, which featured over 70 films by 65 filmmakers, included works by a number of artists associated with GME, such as David Wojnarowicz’s WHERE EVIL DWELLS (1985); Jim Hubbard’s UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ‘ACT UP’ (2012), THE DANCE (1992), and TWO MARCHES (1991); Bruce Conner’s MARILYN TIMES FIVE (1973), Jack Waters’ NAKED BOYS CLEANING (2018), Gunvor Nelson’s TAKE OFF (1972), and Abigail Child’s MAYHEM (1987). As Program Director for the Film Preservation Project of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, GME President Jon Gartenberg spearheaded the preservation of Wojnarowicz’s films (including WHERE EVIL DWELLS) as well as three Jack Waters films: BERLIN/NY (1984), THE MALE GAYZE (1991), and DIOTIMA (1993). Recently, Gartenberg programmed Conner’s MARILYN TIMES FIVE for the New York Public Library show Naughty Films at the Library: Avant-Garde Works in the NYPL’s Reserve Film and Video Collection. GME is proud to distribute Nelson’s TAKE OFF (which is included in the collection DEPARTURES) as a DVD and DSL file to North American universities. GME also distributes Jim Hubbard’s ELEGY IN THE STREETS as a DSL file, and Abigail Child’s seven-part film series IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE BORN FOR? on DVD.