October 2023 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues
/Happy November from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! As we head into the holiday season, we’re looking back at events, screenings, and celebrations from last month, in New York City and beyond, related to colleagues of GME as well as films and/or filmmakers in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. October’s events offered a unique selection of GME artists and friends, from Dominic Angerame and James Benning, to Jeff Preiss and Jerome Hiler, both of whom were collaborators of Warren Sonbert, whose body of work GME exclusively represents.
GME PRESIDENT JON GARTENBERG AND MULTIMEDIA ARTIST JEFF PREISS AT THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CCCP@10 BOOK AND FILM LAUNCH, WHERE PREISS PRESENTED HIS VIDEO INSTALLATION. (OCTOBER 5th, 2023).
October 5th — Columbia University
Multimedia artist Jeff Preiss presented a video installation at Columbia University’s CCCP@10 book and film launch, which opened on October 5th, 2023, and ran through October 30th. GME President Jon Gartenberg and Fine Arts Curator David Deitch were in attendance at the October 5th launch. Preiss was a student of filmmaker Warren Sonbert, whose films GME exclusively represents.
FILMMAKER DOMINIC ANGERAME. SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
October 7th — Roxie (San Francisco)
On Saturday, October 7th, 2023, nine short works by filmmaker, theorist, and avant-garde activist Dominic Angerame screened at San Francisco’s Roxie in a program titled The Soul of Cinema. GME is proud to distribute nine of Angerame’s “city symphonies” in the collection CITYSCAPES, which is available to the North American university market as both a DSL file and physical DVD.
FILMMAKER JAMES BENNING AT VIENNALE In 2012. SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
October 8th — New York Film Festival
On Sunday, October 8th, and Monday, October 9th, 2023, James Benning’s new film ALLENSWORTH screened at the New York Film Festival in the Currents section. Benning remains one of our most significant, formalist avant-garde filmmakers, and GME is proud to be the sole distributor of his films to the North American university market. Currently available from GME as both DVDs and DVD/DSL bundles are Benning’s films 11 X 14, ONE WAY BOOGIE WOOGIE, 27 YEARS LATER (1977-2012), GRAND OPERA (1979), AMERICAN DREAMS (LOST & FOUND) (1984), O PANAMA (1985), LANDSCAPE SUICIDE (1986), DESERET (1995), FOUR CORNERS (1997), his CALIFORNIA TRILOGY (1999-2001), CASTING A GLANCE (2007), RR (2007), NATURAL HISTORY (2009), and RUHR (2014).
SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN, APPEARING IN WARREN SONBERT’S 1981 FILM NOBLESSE OBLIGE.
October 13th — In Memoriam
On October 13th, GME remembered Senator Dianne Feinstein, who passed away on September 29th at the age of 90. Feinstein was celebrated for her advocacy, in general, of the queer community and LGBTQ+ rights. She was also captured on film by Warren Sonbert, an experimental filmmaker whose work included depictions of gay life on screen, as well as encoded in the subtext of a number of his films, and whose films are exclusively represented by GME. Feinstein appears briefly in Sonbert’s 1981 film NOBLESSE OBLIGE, described by GME President Jon Gartenberg as “a masterfully edited work that features imagery Sonbert photographed of protests in San Francisco following the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Councilman Harvey Milk at the hands of Dan White.”
DUSTIN HOFFMAN AND JON VOIGHT IN JOHN SCHLESINGER’S MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969). SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES.
October 19th — Kino Lorber
On October 19th, GME announced that Kino Lorber had released Nancy Buirski’s 2023 documentary DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY, AND THE LEGEND OF ‘MIDNIGHT COWBOY’ on DVD in North America. GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-1966) and SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1990, from THE SIXTIES QUARTET, 1990-1999) for this film. GME also distributes ten titles on Blu-Ray, DVD and DSL from Kino Lorber to the North American university market.
ACTIVIST, AUTHOR, AND FILM HISTORIAN VITO RUSSO. SOURCE: NYC LGBT HISTORIC SITES PROJECT.
October 20th — In Memoriam
On October 20th, GME remembered pioneering activist, author, and film historian Vito Russo in honor of LGBTQ+ History Month. Russo may be best known today as the author of the seminal book THE CELLULOID CLOSET, which examines the history of depictions of homosexuality in Hollywood films. GME President Jon Gartenberg worked with Russo at MoMA, and later appeared in the 2011 HBO documentary about his life, titled VITO. Gartenberg recalls: “What struck me about Vito was that he appeared to be completely comfortable in his own skin, which undoubtedly enabled him to be at the forefront of gay activism.”
ERIC FARR AND ROCK HUDSON IN MARK RAPPAPORT’S ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES (1992). SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.
October 21st — Home Movie Day
On October 21st, a.k.a. “Home Movie Day,” GME revisited an essential work in the “home movie” genre, Mark Rappaport’s 1992 collage film ROCK HUDSON’S HOME MOVIES. Rappaport’s film is currently available for North American institutional acquisition, as both a DSL file and DVD, from GME.
STILL: JEROME HILER’S WORDS OF MERCURY (2011), FEATURED IN THE PROGRAM ILLUMINATIONS: JEROME HILER. SOURCE: BERKELEY ART MUSEUM/PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE.
October 28th — BAM/PFA
From the beginning of September through October 28th, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive hosted a retrospective of the work of experimental filmmaker, painter, and stained glass artist Jerome Hiler. Hiler appears with his partner Nathaniel Dorsky in the work of Warren Sonbert, whose catalogue of experimental films, dating back to the 1960s, is exclusively represented by Gartenberg Media Enterprises. Notably, Hiler and Dorsky show up in the final sequences of Sonbert’s THE TENTH LEGION (1967) and NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981).
STILL: OLGA PREOBRAZHENSKAIA’S THE PEASANT WOMEN OF RIAZAN (1927). SOURCE: THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.
October 29th — MoMA
On Sunday, October 29th, at 2pm, Olga Preobrazhenskaia’s 1927 film THE PEASANT WOMEN OF RIAZAN played at the Museum of Modern Art in the program After Alice, Beyond Lois: Mining the Archive with the Women Film Pioneers Project. GME distributes the work of over 100 women filmmakers, including Preobrazhenskaia. Her film is currently available to the North American university market, from GME, in the six-disc Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS: AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY.