GME News
In recent years, the work of filmmaker Warren Sonbert has experienced a renaissance among film critics, scholars, cinephiles, and the general public. Sonbert’s films have proven especially popular with younger audiences around the globe who are discovering his work for the first time.
Read MoreOn Friday, March 28th, filmmaker and poet Abigail Child presented her feature-length cinematic triptych THE SUBURBAN TRILOGY at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, of which she is a longtime member. THE SUBURBAN TRILOGY is comprised of three films Child created over the span of a decade: CAKE AND STEAK (2004), THE FUTURE IS BEHIND YOU (2004), and SURF AND TURF (2008—11). Child describes the trilogy as “prismatic” and being “about girlhood and the immigrant dream, focusing on post-WWII North American suburbs and… the war in Europe, critically seen through the lens of gender, property and myths of nation.” GME President Jon Gartenberg is a longtime friend and collaborator of Child’s and has programmed her work at film festivals internationally, including THE SUBURBAN TRILOGY, which was screened at the Pesaro Film Festival. Gartenberg contributed the program note for this screening at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, which can be read here.
Read MoreToday we recap screenings, events, and celebrations from January, in New York City and beyond, related to GME titles, artists, and colleagues. In the first half of the month, a number of films that GME distributes to universities in North America were programmed at Anthology Film Archives. In the latter half of the month, GME highlighted the work of photographers Raimondo Borea, Hugh Bell, and Jack Mitchell. Specifically, Borea and Bell’s oeuvres were highlighted with the release of GME's New Photo Licensing Reel, and Mitchell’s 1963 portraits of dancer Maria Tallchief were revisited ahead of the New York City Ballet’s celebration of Tallchief’s centennial. Additionally, Mitchell’s 1994 images of Paul Taylor dancing with Mikhail Baryshnikov were presented in a new video, in recognition of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division’s 2025 Dance Symposium celebrating Baryshnikov and his legacy.
Read MoreOn Saturday, January 18th, at 7pm, Missouri’s New Music Circle will screen Warren Sonbert’s third film, HALL OF MIRRORS (1966), in a program of experimental films that were made in the first decade of the organization’s existence (1959—1969). GME is the custodian of Sonbert’s legacy, and since his passing has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute, and curate career retrospectives of his films on an international basis, as well as publish original documents from the paper archive of his writings. HALL OF MIRRORS is an outgrowth of one of Sonbert’s film classes at NYU taught by Carl Lerner, the editor of such Hollywood features as 12 ANGRY MEN (1957) and REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT (1962). Sonbert was provided with outtakes from a Hollywood film photographed by Hal Mohr to re-edit into a narrative sequence.
Read MoreGME's Photo Licensing Reel comprises a vast array of photographs taken by Raimondo Borea (1926—1982) and Hugh Bell (1927—2012), whose collections are represented by Gartenberg Media Enterprises for licensing, exhibition, and placement.
Read MoreBeginning in the 1980s, Queer Studies became popular in academic curricula and has resulted, over the ensuing decades, in a body of literature about films and filmmakers viewed through this lens. In honor of LGBTQ+ History Month, GME highlights an array of moving image works that we distribute (both classic and contemporary) by LGBTQ+ artists and/or about topics and themes relevant to the LGBTQ+ community. These works are available to academic institutions in North America, and are distributed in collaboration withIndex Edition, Re:Voir Video, Flicker Alley, MētisPresses, Kino Lorber, and Edition Filmmuseum.
Read MoreOn Friday, August 30th, at 7:30pm, Warren Sonbert’s first two films AMPHETAMINE (1966) and WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? (1966) will screen at Spectacle Theater (124 S. 3rd St.) in the program The Motown Sound and the Queer Underground, curated by GME associate Matt McKinzie as part of the series Sonic Visions: Experiments in Cinema and Music, presented by the Film-Makers’ Cooperative. Sonbert’s Estate has previously named GME as the custodian of his legacy, and since the artist’s untimely passing, GME has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute, and curate career retrospectives of his films on an international basis, as well as publish original documents from the paper archive of his writings.
Read MoreIt may be the dog days of summer, but that hasn’t stopped GME from keeping busy. Today, we reflect on screenings, events, and celebrations from July related to our multifaceted projects. Notably, an archival gem relevant to MoMA’s month-long Powell and Pressburger retrospective was unearthed from GME President Jon Gartenberg’s papers, and a true crime film by James Benning (whose films we exclusively distribute to North American universities) screened at Anthology Film Archives.
Read MoreOn the occasion of Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger, a month-long retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art showcasing the work of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, GME reflects on Warren Sonbert’s 1976 polyvalent montage film RUDE AWAKENING, which was directly inspired by the legendary British filmmaking duo. Powell and Pressburger — the creative partnership behind such classics as THE RED SHOES (1946) and BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) — produced and distributed their work under their company “The Archers,” which was denoted at the beginning of their films with a logo featuring an arrow landing in the center of a bullseye. Sonbert explicitly echoes Powell and Pressburger’s logo in RUDE AWAKENING by starting the film with a brief shot of a young man shooting a bow and arrow, prior to his montage footage commencing.
Read MoreHappy Summer from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! Today we reflect on screenings, events, and celebrations from June, in New York City and beyond, related to GME’s multifaceted projects. Notably, a suite of films by Warren Sonbert, whose body of work and legacy GME represents, played at the National Gallery of Art, while several films by Alexander Kluge, whose work GME distributes to the North American University Market, were shown at e-Flux Screening Room as part of an extensive, week-long retrospective.
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