During the past decade, Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) has been actively engaged in seeking out and representing high quality DVD & Blu-ray publications from film archives and boutique publishers around the world, representing films and videos that encompass important works from the breadth and depth of the history of the moving image. These premiere publications are made available by GME exclusively for institutional purchase by the university market in North America. We currently offer more than 150 publications that are noted here. These works range from pioneers of the silent narrative cinema to cutting edge filmmakers of the contemporary avant-garde.

GME is pleased to release the two most recent digital editions of moving image works by notable Austrian experimental filmmakers Peter Tscherkassky (EXQUISITE ECSTASIES) and Dietmar Brehm (PRAXIS SELECTION).  Both these DVDs have been published through the INDEX DVD label, which aims to represent a comprehensive history of Austrian film, video, and media art. 

We are particularly pleased to release two DVDs -- THE LAST CHANCE (1945) and SWISS TOUR(1949) --that GME has co-published with Praesens-Film AG, a Swiss production company founded in 1924 that is still active today. According to film scholar Yvonne Zimmerman, “The flagship Swiss movies produced by Praesens were made primarily by foreigners, immigrants and émigrés. Praesens founder Lazar Wechsler was of Polish origin who came to Switzerland from Austria in 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I and established Praesens-Film AG in 1924. 

James Benning is one of the most pre-eminent American independent filmmakers in the experimental narrative vein.  As a young man, living in the Milwaukee in the 1960s, he saw MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON broadcast on public television.   This film made an indelible impression on him: “It was just so different to anything I’d ever seen”.   This experience motivated him in part to take up an artistic career in filmmaking (following studies in mathematics), even though his developing artistic style differed markedly from that of Maya Deren’s.  Between 1971 and 1977, he made an extensive series of short films in 8mm and 16mm, some in collaboration with then-partner Bette Gordon.  In 1977, he shifted his practice to incorporate the making of feature length films.  In 2007, Benning declared, “No more 16mm filmmaking: the lab work is too stressful, and projection is getting worse than terrible. I'm going to make small DVD works and show them to friends."

The role of women filmmakers has been generally overlooked in the writing of film histories, and the Women Film Pioneer Project attempts to rectify this oversight, as does our release for academic use and study of the 6-disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo pack boxed set entitled EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS: AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY.  International in scope, this groundbreaking collection features over 10 hours of material, comprised of 25 films spanning the years 1902-1943, including many rare titles not widely available until now, from shorts to feature films, live-action to animation, commercial narratives to experimental works. Directors include Alice Guy Blaché, Lois Weber, Mabel Normand, Madeline Brandeis, Germaine Dulac, Olga Preobrazhenskaia, Marie-Louise Iribe, Lotte Reiniger, Claire Parker, Mrs. Wallace Reid (Dorothy Davenport), Leni Riefenstahl, Mary Ellen Bute, Dorothy Arzner, and Maya Deren.  These women were technically and stylistically innovative, pushing the boundaries of narrative, aesthetics, and genre.   Supplementing this groundbreaking publication, GME’s distribution catalogue already features a rich array of DVD publications by women filmmakers, many in the avant-garde vein, a genre in which female filmmakers have predominated, from the silent era through to the present day. 

In order to enrich the selection of Experimental Narratives and Avant-Garde Shorts, GME is especially proud to now add legendary film artist Stan Brakhage to the collection, debuting here with his first masterful foray into the then still newly evolving long form of film experimentation with ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT (1958).