Love and Joy, Warren Sonbert

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Love and Joy, Warren Sonbert

On Sunday, June 8th, at 2:15pm, Gartenberg Media Enterprises and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative will premiere new digital restorations of Warren Sonbert’s AMPHETAMINE, WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?, HALL OF MIRRORS, and CARRIAGE TRADE at Metrograph. This World Premiere screening also celebrates the return of these early films of Warren Sonbert to the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative, from where they were originally distributed to be shown at the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque and elsewhere. The post-screening panel will be moderated by curator and archivist Jon Gartenberg and include the FMC’s Artist Liaison, Matt McKinzie, and Sonbert’s longtime friends, Emmy Award-winning animator and NYU professor Jeff Scher and fashion designer Barbara Hodes.

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FRAMEWORK, Volume 64, No. 2: The Early Films of Warren Sonbert (1966-1973)

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FRAMEWORK, Volume 64, No. 2: The Early Films of Warren Sonbert (1966-1973)

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.

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Three Warren Sonbert Films Screened at Doc Films at University of Chicago

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Three Warren Sonbert Films Screened at Doc Films at University of Chicago

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.”

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The Sonbert Renaissance

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The Sonbert Renaissance

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.

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January 2025 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

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January 2025 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

Today we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from January, in New York City and beyond, related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. In the first half of the month, a number of films that GME distributes to universities in North America were programmed at Anthology Film Archives. In the latter half of the month, GME highlighted the work of photographers Raimondo Borea, Hugh Bell, and Jack Mitchell. Specifically, Borea and Bell’s oeuvres were highlighted with the release of GME's New Photo Licensing Reel, and Mitchell’s 1963 portraits of dancer Maria Tallchief were revisited ahead of the New York City Ballet’s celebration of Tallchief’s centennial. Additionally, Mitchell’s 1994 images of Paul Taylor dancing with Mikhail Baryshnikov were presented in a new video, in recognition of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division’s 2025 Dance Symposium celebrating Baryshnikov and his legacy.

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Warren Sonbert's HALL OF MIRRORS Screens at New Music Circle on January 18th

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Warren Sonbert's HALL OF MIRRORS Screens at New Music Circle on January 18th

On Saturday, January 18th, at 7pm, Missouri’s New Music Circle will screen Warren Sonbert’s third film, HALL OF MIRRORS (1966), in a program of experimental films that were made in the first decade of the organization’s existence (1959—1969). GME is the custodian of Sonbert’s legacy, and since his passing has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute, and curate career retrospectives of his films on an international basis, as well as publish original documents from the paper archive of his writings. HALL OF MIRRORS is an outgrowth of one of Sonbert’s film classes at NYU taught by Carl Lerner, the editor of such Hollywood features as 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) and REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT (1962). Sonbert was provided with outtakes from a Hollywood film photographed by Hal Mohr to re-edit into a narrative sequence.

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Warren Sonbert Retrospective at the National Gallery of Art June 8th-9th

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Warren Sonbert Retrospective at the National Gallery of Art June 8th-9th

A series of films by Warren Sonbert, curated and presented by GME President Jon Gartenberg, will screen at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in June as part of the museum’s annual Pride Month event We Have Always Been Here. Gartenberg adapted these Sonbert programs from the Sonbert retrospective that played at The Museum of Modern Art in May of last year.

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