Reflecting on "Love and Joy, Warren Sonbert"

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.

GME President Jon Gartenberg remarked, “Metrograph is a venue that deftly bridges the avant-garde with the mainstream and consistently offers adventurous and cutting-edge programming to New York City's wider moviegoing public.” The reaction to the new digital transfers by numerous filmmakers (among them Lynne Sachs, Jeff Scher, Keith Sanborn, Henry Hills, and Mark Street) was overwhelmingly positive. Scher remarked, “It was really fantastic seeing Warren’s work in deluxe digital… It’s like his work is being re-born for a new generation! Carriage Trade really looked so beautiful.” Hills dubbed the DCPs "fantastic." Street noted that “Warren's spirit was alive in that room” and that after the screening he felt “hopeful, enthused, inspired.”

The screening was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Gartenberg and featuring Matt McKinzie (GME Associate and Artist Liaison of The Film-Makers' Cooperative), and two of Sonbert's longtime friends: noted fashion designer Barbara Hodes, and Jeff Scher, an Emmy-winning animator and NYU professor. The four panelists discussed, among other subjects: Sonbert's capture on film of the downtown New York milieu of the 1960s, together with the Warhol Factory Scene; his use of Motown music and its relation to queer sensibility in his early works; and Sonbert’s polyvalent montage strategy in Carriage Trade and his later films, that (according to critic and scholar Michael Sicinski) suggest “a progressive cosmopolitanism or globalism that is in contrast to the current concept of globalism as a purely capitalist relation.” The panel concluded by discussing the themes of joy and community in Sonbert’s work as well as of a sustained effort to further his legacy as one of the key canonical artists in the history of avant-garde cinema.

Watch the video below to view the panel discussion in full:

Following the screening and discussion, we were joined by friends, family, and colleagues at Cafe Katja for a lively reception. Photos from this gathering can be viewed below:

Watch for forthcoming announcements regarding the Coop's distribution of Sonbert's early films, as well as a touring program in digital format of these works. Furthermore, stay tuned for the release of new digital restorations of Sonbert's polyvalent montage films this coming fall, 2025.