GME DVD Distribution – British Experimental Films by Peter Gidal and Chris Welsby, Now Available for Institutional Sales

Following up on GME’s release of SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT, an anthology of British experimental films produced through the facilities of the London Film-Makers’ Cooperative, we are pleased to announce now monographic DVD publications of films by Peter Gidal (CONDITION OF ILLUSION) and Chris Welsby (BRITISH ARTISTS FILMS).

“A film is materialist if it does not cover its apparatus of illusionism. Thus it is not a transmitter of anti-illusionism pure and simple, uncovered truth, but rather, a constant procedural work against the attempts at producing an illusionist continuum’s hegemony."

– Peter Gidal

Peter Gidal enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London where he began his career as an experimental filmmaker. He helped found the London Film-Makers’ Coop, and his films were shown in the 1960s at various underground London venues. One of the major proponents of British structural cinema, Gidal has been a proponent of such American structuralist filmmakers as Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton.

Gidal’s own films are interrogations into the formalist aspect of film, with an emphasis on grain, duration, tempo and editing structures. This is accompanied by an almost willful insistence on the filmmakers as the ultimate arbiter of the construction of any work. Gidal’s films also invite the spectator to consider various aspects of the meditation between the real and the reel.

The DVD of CONDITION OF ILLUSION (published by Re:Voir) brings together 11 films by Peter Gidal made between 1967 to 2013. It is accompanied by a unique 40 page booklet of texts about the filmmaker’s work by Patricia L. Boyd, Stephen Heath and Chris Kennedy. The booklet is composed of transparent pages and was designed by Diana Vidrascu at Re:Voir. The release of this DVD edition also coincides with the publication of the book Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966-2016 published by the Visible Press.

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"Each of my films is a separate attempt to re-define the interface between ‘mind’ and ‘nature’. In my work, the mechanics of film and video interact with the landscape in such a way that elemental processes – such as changes in light, the rise and fall of tide or changes in wind direction – are given the space and time to participate in the process of representation."

– Chris Welsby

The BFI’s British Artists’ Films series produced in partnership with arts documentary producers Illuminations and Arts Council England features a wide selection of important film and video work by British artists from the last thirty years. This release focuses on the work of Chris Welsby, landscape artist and pioneer of the moving-image installation in Britain, whose subtle meditations are exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.

Featured on the DVD are works from different stages in his career, uniquely tracing his development as an artist, from his early critical responses to British structural filmmaking and Minimalism of the 1970s to his mature, contemplative landscape works of the 1980s and 1990s. The films included in this edition are: STREAM LINE, PARK FILM, WINDMILL III, SEVEN DAYS, WIND VANE, SKY LIGHT, DRIFT and RIVER YAR (made with William Raban). The DVD also includes a 30-minute video interview with the artist by John Wyver. Sleeve notes are by Luara Mulvey, and booklet texts include essays on his work and individual films by the filmmaker himself, as well as peter Wollen, Deke Dusinberre, Fred Camper, Manohla Dargis and Chrissie Iles.

“The techniques developed by Welsby made it possible for there to be a direct (‘indexical’ in the semiotic terminology developed by Pierce) registration of natural phenomena on film. Thus, camera movement could be determined by wind-direction after a wind-vane was linked to a panninghead on the tripod. Natural processes were no longer simply recorded from the outside, as objets of observation; they could be made to participate in the scheme of observation itself. The point of observation was no longer the external ‘Archimedean’ point of the artist’s own consciousness. Furthermore, the automatic procedures of science and technology, instead of being inflicted on nature in order to dominate it, were directed by nature itself. The promise at the heart of Welsby’s work is that of a new type of relationship between science and nature, and between subject and object of observation.”

– Peter Wollen

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Additional British Experimental and American Structuralist Films Available from GME:

GME DVD Distribution – Josef von Sternberg's The Salvation Hunters & Children of Divorce

GME is proud to present two silent film releases directed by Josef von Sternberg: his first feature film, THE SALVATION HUNTERS (1925), as well as his uncredited directorial involvement in the feature film drama, CHILDREN OF DIVORCE (1927).

“I had in mind a visual poem.”
– Josef von Sternberg

Described both as the first truly independent American feature film made outside the studio system, as well as the first feature-length avant-garde movie, THE SALVATION HUNTERS was produced on a shoestring budget by the actor George K. Arthur.  It was shot in and around San Pedro, California. Sternberg was the auteur on this film, who was responsible for the direction, writing, art direction, and editing. Chaplin’s support for the film got it distributed through United Artists.
                
“Sternberg spun the necessity of a low budget into a virtue: the film faithfully captures the grit of the 'lower depths' milieu in its story of an impoverished young woman striving to make a better life with her naïve boyfriend, despite being surrounded by men who would exploit her. The film reveals Sternberg, under the influence of Stroheim, rejected the sentimental melodrama of D.W. Griffith in favor of an almost raw naturalism, fascinated with corruption and abasement while also exploring the poetically charged and evocatively contrasting mise-en-scene."

– Havard Film Archive calendar program

Bonus features on this DVD include the only existing fragment of von Sternberg’s THE CASE OF LENA SMITH (1929), as well as a video essay by film scholar Janet Bergstrom about THE SALVATION HUNTERS.

THE SALVATION HUNTERS was preserved in 2008 by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The fragment of THE CASE OF LENA SMITH was discovered by Japanese film historian Hiroshi Komatsu in 2003 and preserved by Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum in Tokyo. The Austrian Filmmuseum acquired a 35mm prints of each of these films, which were then extensively digitally restored and remastered for this DVD release.

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CHILDREN OF DIVORCE was actually directed by Frank Lloyd for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation/Paramount Pictures, with a million-dollar budget. The story of the film begins in an American "divorce colony" in Paris after the First World War, where parents would leave their children for months at a time. Jean, Kitty, and Ted meet there as children and become fast friends. Years later, in America, when wealthy Ted (Gary Cooper) reconnects with Jean (Esther Ralston), the two fall deeply in love, vowing to fulfill a childhood promise to one day marry each other. But true love and the most innocent of plans are no match for the scheming Kitty—played by the original Hollywood “It” girl, Clara Bow—who targets Ted for his fortune. After a night of drunken revelry, Ted wakes up to find he has unwittingly married Kitty. This unfortunate turn of events, however, carries with it the traumatized pasts of the three players, whose views of marriage have been shaped as children of divorce.

“[Paramount producer B.P. Schulberg] decided the film needed some European sophistication, and he turned to von Sternberg…The actors, having gone on to new films, were available only at night, so shooting took place after hours. As all the sets had already been struck, von Sternberg and cinematographer Victor Milner filmed everything in a tent, timing shots between rainstorms. This gave von Sternberg complete command of lighting, particularly during Bow’s death scene (suicide by poison) in Ralston’s arms. Shadows and texture imposed a poignant atmosphere…CHILDREN OF DIVORCE showed that von Sternberg could be a company man and work as part of a team. He was rewarded by Schulberg with the film [UNDERWORLD] that would launch his reputation.”

– John Baxter, von Sternberg

Sourced from the original nitrate negative held by the Library of Congress, as well as their 1969 fine grain master, this new restoration of CHILDREN OF DIVORCE was scanned in 4K resolution, and represents over 200 hours of laboratory work by the Library of Congress in order to create the best version possible. Though some deterioration remains, this is the first time the film has ever been released on home video (by Flicker Alley), allowing audiences to enjoy a rare viewing of classic performances from two of early cinema’s most recognizable stars, namely Clara Bow and Gary Cooper.

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Related American Silent Feature Length Films of Interest from GME:

Hugh Bell Photo Galleries Now Available to View on GME Website

Hugh Bell was a renowned art and commercial photographer, who worked in New York City over the course of his entire professional career. Upon his death in 2012, his son-in-law, Richard Martha, was named Executor of the Estate of Hugh Bell. In 2014 GME was engaged on an exclusive basis by the Bell Estate to manage the collection of Hugh Bell’s photographs and to further the artist’s legacy. GME is committed to resurrecting the career of this overlooked photographer, through licensing of his photographs, republishing his out-of-print books, mounting curated exhibitions, and in identifying a long-term repository for this significant collection of photographic works. Please contact info@gartenbergmedia.com for all inquiries related to the Hugh Bell photography collection.

Hot Jazz (1952)

Biography

Self portrait

Hugh Cecil Bell was born in 1927 in Harlem, New York City to parents from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. As a young man he first attended City College, and then graduated in 1952 with a degree in Journalism and Cinematic Art from NYU. After NYU, Bell put his Film Degree to use and found work as a cameraman for television commercials.

Early in his career, Bell was befriended by the cinema vérité pioneer, Richard Leacock, who was interested in helping minorities find a professional footing. Bell assisted Leacock on the shooting of several documentaries, including “Jazz Dance” (1952). He also accompanied Leacock on several trips to Spain, where Bell met and photographed the world-famous Spanish bullfighter, Dominguin, as well as Lauren Bacall and Ernest Hemingway. Bell’s friendship with Leacock continued to deepen, and over the ensuing decades, he photographed the Leacock family in an extended series of candid portraits at their home.

In 1952, Bell shot his first of many legendary photographs of jazz greats, “Hot Jazz”. In 1955, Edward Steichen selected “Hot Jazz” for the groundbreaking exhibition “The Family of Man” at The Museum of Modern Art. Over 2 million photos were submitted and only 503 were selected. The exhibit showcased work from 273 photographers including Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Irving Penn. This was the first instance of Hugh Bell’s photographic work being shown alongside these towering figures of modern photography.

During the 1950’s, Hugh Bell frequented all the top jazz clubs in New York City such as the Village Gate, the Open Door Café and Circle in the Square. He encountered and photographed many legendary musicians, including Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Sarah Vaughan. Bell’s lifelong passion for taking jazz photographs, often referred to as his “Jazz Giants” series, has been published in books and magazines. His jazz photographs have also graced the covers of innumerable vinyl jazz records.

In addition to jazz clubs, Bell went to and photographed local boxing matches, dance performances and legitimate plays, including Jean Genet’s “The Blacks,” a seminal theatrical production starring James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Brown, Cicely Tyson, Maya Angelou, and Godfrey Cambridge, that was mounted at the St. Mark’s Playhouse in 1961.

Bell opened his own studio in Manhattan in the 1960’s. Over the course of the ensuing decades he worked as a commercial photographer creating photographs for print advertisements, many of which were targeted specifically to the African American community.

Interspersed with his commercial work, Bell also focused on portraiture. During this period, he is most known for his images of the female figure. In 1970, a series of these portraits were published in Avant Garde magazine in a feature entitled, “Bell’s Belles”. Throughout this period, he also traveled to the West Indies, focusing on the region of his geographical heritage. He photographed carnivals in Trinidad and Haiti, and daily life in Antigua. He also traveled to Brazil, where he took photographs of the local citizenry.

Hugh Bell passed away on October 31, 2012. He left behind an extensive and wide-ranging photographic legacy that is now ready for rediscovery.

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For more information about the Hugh Bell archive and his photographs, please contact:
info@gartenbergmedia.com

All Photographs, © The Estate of Hugh Bell

GME DVD Distribution – Gunvor Nelson's Light Years Now Available on DVD for Institutional Sales

The Swedish-American artist Gunvor Nelson figures among the most important experimental filmmakers of her generation. She was born in Sweden, but left her native country in the mid-1950s to study painting and art history in the United States. Later, she and her husband, filmmaker Bob Nelson settled in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised their daughter, Oona. Gunvor Nelson's first film work was with her husband, then with her neighbor Dorothy Wiley, and finally on her own.

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Her work considerably influenced the New American Cinema at the end of the 1960s, as much by its themes (women, the body, memory, dreams) as by its formal investigations (animation, collage, found footage).  She made what she termed “personal” films.

Complementing GME’s previous release of Gunvor Nelson’s DEPARTURES, the films and the booklet essays contained in this new DVD publication LIGHT YEARS reflect a half-century of evolution in this female artist’s use of media and technique. From her first experimental films made in California (FOG PUMAS, 1967) to her more recent Swedish films and video (FRAME LINE, 1983-2014), material fictions joyously exalt in a fireworks of sensations. This DVD is accompanied by a 124 page book of critical essays as well as an interview with the filmmaker.

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A Selection of Related Titles by Women Filmmakers also Available from GME:

GME DVD Distribution – Experimental Film and Animation from Spain and Latin America

GME now offers three new DVD publications from the Spanish boutique publisher, Cameo Media, that focus on historical overviews of Spanish animation, Latin American experimental cinema, and video art from Spain: FROM DOODLES TO PIXELS: A JOURNEY THROUGH SPANISH ANIMATION (DELTRAZO AL PIXEL: UN RECORRIDO POR LA NIMACIÓN ESPAÑOLA); also CINE A CONTRACORRIENTE: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE OTHER LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA; and APOLOGÍA ANTOLOGÍA: VIDEO ITINERARIES THROUGH THE SPANISH CONTEXT. Each publication is produced with booklets that further contextualize these cinema movements, and/or provide analysis and descriptions of the individual works.

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FROM DOODLES TO PIXELS: A JOURNEY THROUGH SPANISH ANIMATION is an extraordinary compilation of the best of Spanish animated film. It tours a century of talent through around fifty short films, a selection of animated commercials and the first Spanish animated feature film for adults, HISTORIAS DE AMOR Y MASACRE, carefully restored for this edition. These DVDs not only reflect the diversity of techniques that make animation an art that knows no boundaries, but also offer a journey through the aesthetic evolution of a country that has lived through times of scarcity and isolation before becoming one of the richest creative talent pools in the international arena. This boxed set includes a 160 page booklet with information on each film. 

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VIDEO ITINERARIES THROUGH THE SPANISH CONTEXT presents a retrospective view of Spanish video art through 40 years of audiovisual creation (1974-2014). 85 works are included, organized around the following themes: Conceptual Art, archival appropriation, political works, the body, and the video medium as an oppositional tool. This publication is a companion DVD edition to GME’s previous release of FROM ECSTASY TO RAPTURE (DEL ÉXTASIS AL ARREBATO): A Journey Through Spanish Experimental Cinema. Together they comprise a diptych essential for enthusiasts of less conventional cinema on both sides of the Atlantic.

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A JOURNEY THROUGH THE OTHER LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA contains a selection of films from a traveling exhibition program, “Cinema Against the Grain.” This DVD edition presents a premiere selection of 19 avant-garde, documentary, animation, and experimental films from all throughout Latin America (including Cuba) that date from 1933 to 2008. Within the complex universe of Latin American cinema, these are fundamental works of art that are hardly known to the general public. An accompanying booklet provides description and analysis of each of the films presented in this DVD publication.

Additional Historical Anthologies of Spanish Cinema Available from GME:

GME DVD Distribution – Fall 2016 Releases

With the fall academic season now underway, Gartenberg Media Enterprises is pleased to present a new slate of DVD and Blu-ray publications for distribution to the North American academic community. These digital editions, selected from film archives and boutique publishers worldwide, represent the entire breadth and depth of moving image history, ranging from Josef von Sternberg’s THE SALVATION HUNTERS (1924), one of the earliest independent American productions through to Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Gustav Deutsch’s NOTES AND SKETCHES 1 (2005-2015) and Swedish-American artist Gunvor Nelson’s FRAME LINE (1983-2014), and Peter Gidal's CODA I and CODA II (both 2013).

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GME now offers three new DVD publications from the Spanish boutique publisher, Cameo Media: FROM DOODLES TO PIXELS: A JOURNEY THROUGH SPANISH ANIMATION (DEL TRAZO AL PIXEL: UN RECORRIDO POR LA NIMACIÓN ESPAÑOLA), CINE A CONTRACORRIENTE: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE OTHER LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA, and APOLOGÍA ANTOLOGÍA: VIDEO ITINERARIES THROUGH THE SPANISH CONTEXT. Each publication is produced with booklets that further contextualize these cinema movements, and/or provide analysis and descriptions of the individual works.

FROM DOODLES TO PIXELS: A JOURNEY THROUGH SPANISH ANIMATION is an extraordinary compilation of the best of Spanish animated film. It tours a century of talent through around fifty short films, a selection of animated commercials and the first Spanish animated feature film for adults, HISTORIAS DE AMOR Y MASACRE, carefully restored for this edition.These DVDs not only reflect the diversity of techniques that make animation an art that knows no boundaries, but also offer a journey through the aesthetic evolution of a country that has lived through times of scarcity and isolation before becoming one of the richest creative talent pools in the international arena. A JOURNEY THROUGH THE OTHER LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA contains a selection of films from a traveling exhibition program, “Cinema Against the Grain.” This DVD edition presents a premiere selection of 19 avant-garde, documentary, animation, and experimental films from all throughout Latin America (including Cuba). Within the complex universe of Latin American cinema, these are fundamental works of art that are hardly known to the general public.  

Divided into 5 thematic sections, each curated by a noted scholar, VIDEO ITINERARIES THROUGH THE SPANISH CONTEXT presents a retrospective view of Spanish video art through 50 years of audiovisual creation. The organizational themes include Conceptual Art, archival appropriation, political works, the body, and the video medium as an oppositional tool. This publication is a companion DVD edition to GME’s previous release of FROM ECSTASY TO RAPTURE (DEL ÉXTASIS AL ARREBATO): A Journey Through Spanish Experimental Cinema.

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The Swedish-American artist Gunvor Nelson figures among the most important experimental filmmakers of her generation. Her work considerably influenced the New American Cinema at the end of the 1960s, as much by its themes (women, the body, memory, dreams) as by its formal investigations (animation, collage, found footage). Complementing GME’s previous release of Gunvor Nelson’s DEPARTURES, the films and the essay contained in this new DVD publication LIGHT YEARS (from Re:Voir) reflect a half-century of evolution in this female artist's use of media and technique. From her first experimental films made in California (FOG PUMAS, 1967) to her more recent Swedish films and video (FRAME LINE, 1983-2014), material fictions joyously exalt in a fireworks of sensations. This DVD is accompanied by a 124 page book of interviews and critical articles.

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THE SALVATION HUNTERS (1925)
photo courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive, Los Angeles / Austrian Film Museum, Vienna

GME is particularly honored to present the recent DVD publication (by the Vienna Filmmuseum) of Josef Von Sternberg’s THE SALVATION HUNTERS (1925). Sternberg’s incredible feature debut was among the earliest truly independent American productions, made for a pittance outside the studio system and using San Pedro locations to remarkable effect. Sternberg spun the necessity of a low budget into a virtue: the film faithfully captures the grit of the “lower depths” milieu in its story of an impoverished young woman striving to make a better life with her naïve boyfriend, despite being surrounded by men who would exploit her. The film reveals Sternberg, under the influence of Stroheim, rejected the sentimental melodrama of D.W. Griffith in favor of an almost raw naturalism, fascinated with corruption and abasement while also exploring the poetically charged and evocatively contrasting mise-en-scene. This publication is accompanied by a fragment from Sternberg’s lost film, THE CASE OF LENA SMITH (1929), and by a video essay on THE SALVATION HUNTERS by the noted film scholar, Janet Bergstrom.

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Complementing our previous release of SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT, a DVD compilation of works by key British avant-garde filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s, GME now offers more in-depth studies of the works of two of these artists, Chris Welsby and Peter Gidal. Offered in a specially prepared region free edition by the British Film Institute for the exclusive distribution by GME to the North American institutional market, CHRIS WELSBY: BRITISH ARTISTS’ FILMS was originally produced in partnership with Illuminations (an arts documentary producer) and Arts Council England. Chris Welsby is a landscape artist and pioneer of the moving-image installation in Britain. Featured on the DVD are works from different stages in his career, uniquely tracing his development as an artist, from his early critical responses to British structural filmmaking and Minimalism of the 1970s to his mature, contemplative landscape works of the 1980s and 1990s. Welsby’s subtle cinematic meditations have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.

CONDITION OF ILLUSION brings together 11 films by Peter Gidal made between 1967 to 2013. It is accompanied by a unique 40 page booklet of texts about the filmmaker’s work. An admirer of American structuralist filmmakers such as Michael Snow (RAMEAU’S NEPHEW) and Hollis Frampton, Gidal's own works are also interrogations into the formalist aspect of film, with an emphasis on grain, duration, tempo and editing structures. Gidal's films invite audiences to consider various aspects of the mediation between the real and the reel. This is accompanied by an almost willful insistence on the filmmaker as the ultimate arbiter of the construction of any work.

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Born in Tunisia in 1929, Marcel Hanoun came to the cinema relatively late in life, as an exile director. Visiting France as a child with his parents, he came back to Paris permanently after the end of World War II. Drawn to the films of Robert Bresson, Hanoun began to theorize a cinema in which the word and image were separated and given equal value. In this, Hanoun was working along the same lines of thought as the radical experimental filmmaker Isidore Isou, whose TRAITÉ DE BAVE ET D'ETERNITÉ proceeded along a similar path, but with a much more violent approach. Isou used scratched leader, upside down stock footage, and out-of-focus footage of himself interminably wandering the streets of Paris for his visuals, with theoretical diatribes intercut with Lettrist poetry on the soundtrack to create a world in which all is chaos. In THE SEASONS (LES SAISONS) Hanoun employs a quiet, contemplative style, using a static camera and images that force the viewer to concentrate on the most quotidian aspects of existence, to accentuate the dichotomy between sound and image which is implicit in all of cinema.

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GME is pleased to continue featuring releases from the INDEX DVD publishing line produced by Sixpack Films (Vienna), we now present Ernst Schmidt, Jr.’s VIENNAFILM 1896 - 1976 (WIENFILM 1896-1976) and Gustav Deutsch’s NOT HOME. PICTURING THE FOREIGN FILMS 1990-2015, works that depict both the Vienna landscape and foreign journeys. VIENNAFILM 1896-1976 constitutes the first feature length film completed by Ernst Schmidt, Jr., an important Austrian moving image artist. This work is a kind of anthology about Vienna, from the invention of film to the present day, comprising newly-staged scenes as well as incorporating documentary footage. The filmmaker himself describes the work as a collage, evoking the use of diverse footage, tape splices, and an uneven surface – instead of a tidy unity, it conveys a patchwork that remains visible as such.

GME has previously released Gustav Deutch’s signature found footage opus, FILM IST. (1-12). We now present a series of this renown artist’s lesser known works in a DVD edition entitled NOT HOME: PICTURING THE FOREIGN, which charts the development of his signature style and displays his talents as a cinematographer and archivist. The collection places several of his earliest 8mm and 16mm works alongside the 31 ‘pocket films’ shot on digital video between 2005 and 2015, offering a rare glimpse of footage that Deutsch shot himself, rather than material that he has collated and edited.

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In GME’s effort to expand our offerings in the vein of genre cinema, we have now released a DVD edition (published by the Belgian Cinematek) of 3 movies by the director/screenwriter team Jan Vanderheyden and Edith Keil (also husband and wife). Their first film, DE WITTE (WHITEY. 1934), was based on the popular picaresque novel by Ernest Claes, and remained the biggest success in Flemish cinema for decades. Their second film, the romantic operetta ALLEEN VOOR U (ONLY FOR YOU, 1935) is made with the same technical skills and visual flair, but was considered too exotic by film critics. The couple then changes strategy: they focused on cheaply produced, popular films set in Antwerp, full of banter, marital disputes and music. SCHIPPERSKWARTIER (THE SAILORS QUARTER, 1953) is their most important post-war success.

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Finally, GME offers a new DVD publication (by Flicker Alley) of CINERAMA'S RUSSIAN ADVENTURE (1966). It complements our prior Cinerama releases of THIS IS CINERAMA and WINDJAMMER. Photographed over an eight-year period by Russia’s top filmmakers, Cinerama’s Russian Adventure brings together some of the most exquisite, dramatic, and beautiful sequences from over six Soviet Kinopanorama productions (the Russian equivalent of three-panel Cinerama). The film’s locations stretch from one end of Russia to the other, from the snow-covered countryside to the majestic subways of Moscow, from the deck of a whaling ship to the front seats of the Bolshoi Theater. Bing Crosby narrates the journey, offering both a grand and intimate view of a country and culture so often cited and yet so seldom seen.

From Doodles to Pixels: Over a Hundred Years of Spanish Animation – MOMA, September 7-15

The Museum of Modern Art begins its film series "From Doodles to Pixels: Over a Hundred Years of Spanish Animation" this Wednesday September 7th through September 15th. GME currently distributes for North American institutional sales the Cameo Media DVD publication FROM DOODLES TO PIXELS: A JOURNEY THROUGH SPANISH ANIMATION (DEL TRAZO AL PÍXEL: UN RECORRIDO POR LA ANIMACIÓN ESPAÑOLA), which presents many of the same animators featured in the MOMA series including Francisco Macián, Robert Balser, Isabel Herguera, Javier Mariscal, Mercedes Gaspar, Rodrigo Blaas, Anna Solanas, Laura Ginès & Alberto Vázquez.

SANGRE DE UNICORNIO (UNICORN BLOOD) (2013)

Warren Sonbert Film "Short Fuse" The Museum of Arts and Design, NYC – August 18

Gartenberg Media Enterprises is proud to announce that the Warren Sonbert film Short Fuse will be shown at The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City on August 18th, 7pm. The film is part of the museum's Eye on a Director series, which is currently presenting the films of Canyon Cinema. Short Fuse will be presented in the program Continuing Cadences: Fulton, Angerame, Sonbert.

Short Fuse (1992)

From The Museum of Arts and Design Website

"Robert Fulton (1939–2002) was a pilot, a gifted aerial cinematographer, a devout Buddhist, a close friend and collaborator of filmmaker Robert Gardner, and an inspired independent filmmaker. His exhilarating, densely edited, poetically sensitive films were admired by Canyon stalwarts Bruce Baillie and Stan Brakhage, and he was an inspiration for students including filmmaker and former Canyon Cinema Executive Director Dominic Angerame. An artist who traveled the world accompanied by his Bolex camera, he eschewed narrative as he gathered images with a spirit of wonder and generosity, translating the people and places he encountered into scenes of breathtaking beauty and elation, and editing with a dazzling rhythm whose cadences evoke a deep passion for and knowledge of music. Fulton left behind a substantial body of work that resonates with Warren Sonbert's exuberant and visually resplendent montage."

Warren Sonbert with his Bolex Camera.

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For further information about Warren Sonbert’s films, please see:
GME Programming & Curating: Warren Sonbert Retrospective

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All Photographs, © The Estate of Warren Sonbert

Film Society of Lincoln Center presents L'INHUMAINE with the Alloy Orchestra, Tonight at 7:30

Marcel L'Herbier's L'INHUMAINE will be screening tonight at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, 7:30pm, presented with live score by the Alloy Orchestra. GME offers L'INHUMAINE on Blu-ray for North American university sales.