Walther Ruttmann's Silent Classic BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY Opens MoMA's Silent Movie Week

/
Walther Ruttmann's Silent Classic BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY Opens MoMA's Silent Movie Week

From July 30th to August 5th, The Museum of Modern Art will present its third annual Silent Movie Week. This year’s programming is comprised of seven recent silent film restorations screened over seven consecutive evenings. MoMA’s week-long celebration commences with the Museum’s digital restoration of Walther Ruttmann’s BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY (1927), which will be shown with live musical accompaniment in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. GME distributes BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY to North American universities as a DVD publication that also includes Ruttmann’s 1929 feature MELODY OF THE WORLD, and 12 short films by Ruttmann as bonus features. Also included in this release are a selection of Ruttmann’s paintings and drawings, lobby cards and original artwork for BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY, and an 86-minute long radio feature from 1987 about Ruttmann’s life and career.

Read More

Jim McBride's BREATHLESS Screens at the Roxy Cinema Tomorrow; McBride's DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY Screens This Month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room

/
Jim McBride's BREATHLESS Screens at the Roxy Cinema Tomorrow; McBride's DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY Screens This Month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room

Tomorrow, July 5th, at 5pm, Jim McBride’s controversial 1983 remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 French New Wave classic BREATHLESS screens at the Roxy Cinema in Tribeca. McBride co-wrote the screenplay for BREATHLESS with L.M. Kit Carson, who starred in McBride’s feature directorial debut, the groundbreaking 1967 “mockumentary” DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY. Adrienne Mancia, a longtime friend and colleague of GME President Jon Gartenberg, championed McBride’s debut during her time as a curator in the The Museum of Modern Art’s film department, wherein she redefined the field of film programming by showcasing new and innovative works by emerging artists.

DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY streams this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room. Click here to view McBride’s film and read an excerpt from Gartenberg’s program note about DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY, written for the occasion of the film’s inclusion in MoMA’s 2023 Adrienne Mancia tribute.

Read More

AMPHETAMINE Ascending: Warren Sonbert's Groundbreaking Debut Finds New Life on Digital Platforms and in Academia

/
AMPHETAMINE Ascending: Warren Sonbert's Groundbreaking Debut Finds New Life on Digital Platforms and in Academia

Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to announce the release of a new digital restoration of Warren Sonbert’s groundbreaking debut film AMPHETAMINE (1966), which is currently available for institutional sale and clip licensing through GME. The film is also available for rental on a digital format through The Film-Makers’ Cooperative, where Sonbert originally distributed his early films on 16mm. This digital restoration of AMPHETAMINE, which theatrically premiered at Metrograph in New York City on June 8th, 2025, follows a period of renewed scholarly interest in Sonbert’s debut film. Namely, Dr. Maurice Nagington’s 2025 publication The Moral Lessons of Chemsex: A Critical Approach (Routledge), Juan Suarez’s 2024 book Experimental Film and Queer Materiality (Oxford University Press), and GME associate Matt McKinzie's 2024 film program The Motown Sound and the Queer Underground (presented by Spectacle Theater and The Film-Makers' Cooperative), invoke AMPHETAMINE as a key filmic text integral to discourse surrounding 1960s avant-garde cinema, queer representation on film, popular music, chemsex, and connection.

Read More

Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop Documentary Acquired for U.S. Theatrical Distribution by Kino Lorber

/
Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop Documentary Acquired for U.S. Theatrical Distribution by Kino Lorber

On June 4, 2025, it was announced that Kino Lorber had acquired the U.S. distribution rights to Lisa D’Apolito’s SHARI & LAMB CHOP, a documentary about trailblazing children’s entertainer Shari Lewis and her anthropomorphic sock puppet Lamb Chop. For this documentary, GME licensed Raimondo Borea’s photograph of Lewis and Lamb Chop appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the mid-1960s. D’Apolito’s film will be theatrically released by Kino Lorber tomorrow, July 18th, 2025, followed by a digital, educational, and home video release. GME distributes a number of films from Kino Lorber’s library to North American academic institutions. To read a complete list of Kino Lorber titles we currently offer on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital formats, click here.

Read More

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

/
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.

Read More

Now Playing in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room: DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY

/
Now Playing in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room: DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY

Jim McBride’s DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY (1967), which streams this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room, is widely regarded as one of the first “mockumentaries,” and was once described by eminent film critic Richard Brody as an “ingenious, scruffy metafiction… an exotic fruit grown in New York from the seed of the French New Wave.” Filmed on a shoestring budget over the course of several days, it is a work of experimental fiction presented as an autobiographical documentary about aspiring filmmaker David Holzman (played by L.M. Kit Carson), who decides to make a filmed diary of his life on the Upper West Side.

Read More

Now Playing in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room: Allan King's WARRENDALE

/
Now Playing in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room: Allan King's WARRENDALE

Allan King made his feature film directorial debut with the 1967 documentary WARRENDALE, which screens this month 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.” 

Read More

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

/
May 2025 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

Today we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from May related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. Notably, four films by Warren Sonbert screened at Shotgun Cinema in Missouri, and stills from Sonbert’s debut film AMPHETAMINE were featured in Maurice Nagington’s book The Moral Lessons of Chemsex: A Critical Approach, now available in print. In terms of GME’s photography collections, we publicly announced our co-exclusive partnership with Getty Images to license Raimondo Borea’s photographs of The Today Show and The Tonight Show. GME also continued programming in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room last month with a double bill of films by King Vidor and Henry King.

Read More

GME Attended the 2025 Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards at the SVA Theatre on June 3rd

/
GME Attended the 2025 Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards at the SVA Theatre on June 3rd

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.

Read More

Love and Joy, Warren Sonbert

/
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.

Read More