GME News
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, November 27th, 2023, Turner Classic Movies paid tribute to accomplished documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski, who passed away earlier this year. Gartenberg Media Enterprises was thrilled to collaborate with Buirski on her final film, the documentary DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY, AND THE LEGEND OF ‘MIDNIGHT COWBOY’.
Read MoreBeginning tomorrow, September 6th, 2023, through the following day (September 7th), the feature-length documentary KEN JACOBS: FROM ORCHARD STREET TO THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART screens at the Venice International Film Festival in the Venice Classics section. GME associate Fred Riedel, a former student and longtime friend of Ken Jacobs, produced, directed, shot, and edited the film. GME is a longtime friend and collaborator of Jacobs and produced his 2012 film CYCLOPEAN #3D: LIFE WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN through the Experimental Filmmakers Production Fund.
Read MoreFilms by Peter Emmanuel Goldman, Alfred Hitchcock, Ken Jacobs, and GME consultant Fred Riedel are screening in this extensive series presented in association with the Museum of the City of New York’s centennial exhibition This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.
Read MoreCurated by artist and writer Andrew Lampert, this street level exhibition features a panoramic selection of Jacobs’ nearly 70 years of pioneering films and digital videos in the Broadway Windows gallery located on the corner of Broadway and E. 10th Street.
Read MoreThe Museum of Modern Art recognizes more than 50 years of support for experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs with an expansive presentation in the Sculpture Garden including THE WHIRLED (1956–63) and the world premiere of ABSTRACT ETERNALISM (2021), with otherworldly explorations of paintings by Joan Mitchell and Jackson Pollock in the intercises. The screening also celebrates GME’s distribution partner Kino Lorber’s release of THE KEN JACOBS COLLECTION, a Blu-ray box set of 13 works, including MoMA’s own digital restoration of TOM TOM THE PIPER’S SON (1969).
Read MoreGME notes with sadness the recent passing of Warhol superstar Brigid Berlin. A fixture at the Factory for decades, Berlin appeared in several of his films and photos and was also an important participant in Warhol’s life, to which, per the artist, she contributed enormously. Berlin is perhaps best remembered for her shocking role in Warhol’s best known early film, CHELSEA GIRLS (1966).
Read MoreJean-Claude Carrière made a rare New York appearance during the opening weekend of this unprecedented 37-film retrospective during which he was interviewed by GME’s Jon Gartenberg for a French film documentary.
Read MoreGME Gems is a new feature across all GME social media platforms that will frequently highlight treasures from our collections. We are launching this series with some visually dramatic and also lighthearted, even romantic sequences from legendary experimental Ken Jacobs' stereoscopic opus, CYCLOPEAN #3D: LIFE WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.
Read More"Directed by award-winner Jeffrey Schwarz, VITO paints a touching portrait of this outspoken
activist in the LGBT community’s struggle for equal rights, using period footage and film
clips to capture a vibrant era of gay culture. “If you’re going to talk about the gay-rights
movement, you’re going to talk about Vito,” says journalist David Ehrenstein.
The documentary features rich archival interviews with Vito, as well as insights from gay
rights activists, including: Larry Kramer and Arthur Evans; film scholars, among them
former MoMA film curator Jon Gartenberg; and journalists/writers such as Michael
Schiavi and Gabriel Rotello. VITO also offers personal accounts from his many friends,
including Lily Tomlin and Bruce Vilanch, and his family members, including brother
Charles Russo and cousin Phyllis Antonellis.
Vito’s love of movies guided him to a job in the film department at the Museum of Modern
Art, where he began taking note of gay characters in early films. The result of his research
was “The Celluloid Closet,” an entertaining and informative lecture and clip show that
combined his love of show business and radical gay politics, which he took on the road to
gay film festivals and college campuses. His seminal 1981 book of the same name
explored the ways gays and lesbians were portrayed on film, what lessons those characters
taught gay and straight audiences, and how those negative images were at the root of
society’s homophobia. The book was later adapted into the 1995 HBO Peabody Award-
winning documentary “The Celluloid Closet,” directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman..."
