GME News
Warren Sonbert (1947—1995) was one of the seminal figures working in American experimental film. His early films — from 1966’s AMPHETAMINE through to 1973’s CARRIAGE TRADE — are currently available from GME on an exclusive basis as new 2K digital restorations for acquisition by universities, museums, and other cultural institutions worldwide.
Read MoreShot before, during and after 9/11, Steve Bilich's experimental short documentary Native New Yorker took several years of filming with a 1924 hand-cranked Cine-Kodak camera. It follows Shaman Trail Scout 'Coyote' as he takes a journey that transcends time, from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a native trail (now “Broadway”), and into lower Manhattan (a sacred burial ground, now including the newest natives of this island empire). 24 years since the 9/11 attacks, Bilich's film remains as powerful and relevant as ever.
Read MoreToday we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from August related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. For lighter, end-of-summer fare, GME showcased Leopold Lindtberg’s SWISS TOUR in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room. We also announced a 20% sale on all DVD and Blu-Ray titles in our collection, ahead of our shift to focusing on the distribution of moving image works available as Digital Site Licenses (DSLs). Furthermore, GME was pleased to discover the mention of Warren Sonbert and Jon Gartenberg in two recent book publications.
Read MoreWe are pleased to announce new titles of moving image works that are only available as digital files from GME, including the early films of Warren Sonbert (1966-73) and the films of Pierre Clémenti (1967-1988), as well as the Kong Ngee Company's Nanyang Trilogy (1957). Stay tuned for a full slate of DSL releases for the fall semester.
Read MoreOver the past several decades, GME has embarked on a distribution project to release DVDs and Blu-Rays of moving image works that are destined exclusively for purchase by the university market in North America. As the transition to server-based media has grown, we feel that this is the appropriate moment, due to the shift in technology, to offer our catalogue of DVD and Blu-Ray titles at a 20% discount. A number of these titles are rare, out-of-print editions for which GME still retains copies.
Read MoreOver the past several months, GME has paid homage to Adrienne Mancia by showcasing films in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room that she championed throughout her prolific career as a film exhibitor and curator. We now turn our focus to one of our company’s major projects: the excavation of libraries of celluloid films that have been abandoned in warehouses which GME has subsequently repatriated to archives for preservation and exhibition. For lighter, end-of-summer fare, we present Leopold Lindtberg's SWISS TOUR (1949) — a project that cuts across the various facets and activities of our company, including film archiving, distribution, and exhibition.
Read MoreToday we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from July related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. Notably, GME announced the release of a new digital restoration of Warren Sonbert’s groundbreaking debut film AMPHETAMINE (1966), which is currently available for institutional sale, rental, and clip licensing. Two films GME distributes on DVD — Guy Sherwin’s AT THE ACADEMY (1974) and Walther Ruttmann’s BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A CITY (1927) — screened at Light Industry and The Museum of Modern Art, respectively. Furthermore, GME screened Jim McBride’s genre-inventing “mockumentary” DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY this month in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room.
Read MoreFrom 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 MoreTomorrow, 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 MoreGartenberg 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.
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