Following its World Premiere screening at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, KD Davison’s FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE, an intimate look at Jonas Mekas’ life and work, is having its New York premiere on Nov. 12 at the DOC NYC festival in NYC. This film is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, a story of a man who was also the most significant force behind the evolution and promotion of the American Avant-Garde film movement, and who tried to make sense of it all…with a camera. GME licensed numerous clips of Mekas filming with his camera from Gideon Bachmann's UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), a rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixties, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever.

GME previously licensed footage from Jonas Mekas films REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-1966) and SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1990) for the World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 of DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Director Nancy Buirski’s documentary chronicles a dark and difficult masterpiece (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, 1969) and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it. It is about New York in a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change.

We'd also like to call your attention to the timely theatrical release of Phyllis Nagy's 1960’s abortion drama CALL JANE, now playing in commercial theaters, which stars Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Mara. GME licensed Hugh Bell's album cover for The Shangri-las "Leader of the Pack,” In a scene of the protagonist dancing to music from Vinyl records several years before the Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion was handed down by the US Supreme Court (the precedent that was later reversed in 2022).

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And if you missed it, check out our recently compiled Gartenberg Media Clip Licensing Sampler, which includes scenes from experimental and independent films available through GME for theatrical, television and streaming projects, containing imagery of notable personalities Andy Warhol, Jackie Kennedy and extended family, John & Yoko, Miles Davis (shooting hoops with Lennon at a celebrity gathering in Riverdale), Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga (all performing with the Velvet Underground), Alan Ginsburg, Michaelangelo Antonioni (visiting Shirley Clarke and Jonas Mekas at the Filmmakers Cooperative) and a score of others. Clips from this collection depicting the scenesters and lifestyles, especially of NYC in the 1960s, though also including films from the 1940s onward, have been licensed to productions by leading directors including Martin Scorsese, Todd Haynes, Errol Morris, Ric Burns, Joe Berlinger, and for broadcast on PBS, BBC, VH-1, Showtime, AppleTV+, WDR, and other networks and for theatrical release. Filmmakers whose work is popular with our licensing clients include Jonas Mekas, Warren Sonbert, Peter Emmanuel Goldman, Gideon Bachmann, Jackie Raynal and Jack Waters. Many other filmmakers, not represented in the sample reel, are also available via GME's extensive distribution collection of experimental and avant-garde films, and documentaries. Our objective in this enterprise is to increase the value and import of these artist-driven moving image works by placing them into a larger cultural context.

For further information about licensing film clips or photographs, please write info@gartenbergmedia.com.

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Now Playing: GME Licenses Footage for Jonas Mekas Doc FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE and Hugh Bell’s Album Cover Photograph for Abortion Drama DEAR JANE