April 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

April 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

Happy May from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! Today, we’re reflecting on screenings, events, and celebrations from April, in New York City and beyond, related to GME colleagues, as well as titles and/or artists in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. Notably, films by Warren Sonbert and Jean-Pierre Melville played at Sweet Void Cinema and Film Forum, respectively. GME also highlighted Hugh Bell’s portraits of jazz legends for International Jazz Day, and reflected on Jack Mitchell’s photos of dancer and choreographer Arthur Mitchell, founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem, on the occasion of DTH’s festival-style weekend of performances at New York City Center.

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In Recognition of the Upcoming Nathaniel Dorsky/Jerome Hiler Retrospective at MoMA, GME Highlights On Our Website Scenes of the Duo from Warren Sonbert's Films

In Recognition of the Upcoming Nathaniel Dorsky/Jerome Hiler Retrospective at MoMA, GME Highlights On Our Website Scenes of the Duo from Warren Sonbert's Films

This week, The Museum of Modern Art will mount the series Illuminated Hours: The Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, which coincides with the American release of the book of the same name, edited by Francisco Algarín Navarro and GME associate Carlos Saldaña. Later, from May 17th to May 19th, Anthology Film Archives will host the series Illuminated Hours: Three Evenings with Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, also in conjunction with Navarro and Saldaña’s book. Dorsky and Hiler were close friends and filmmaking colleagues of Warren Sonbert from the mid-1960s onward. All three helped pioneer the editing style known as “polyvalent montage.” The following video compiles Dorsky and Hiler’s appearances in Sonbert’s films THE TENTH LEGION (1967), HOLIDAY (1968), and NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981) soundtracked by Frank Sinatra’s “Young at Heart,” which Sonbert features in THE TENTH LEGION. Since 1995, GME President Jon Gartenberg has worked to further Sonbert’s legacy through a comprehensive program of preservation, distribution, programming, and publishing.

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GME Distributes Work by Filmmakers Featured in the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Film at Lincoln Center's Series "Seeing the City: Avant-Garde Visions of New York"

GME Distributes Work by Filmmakers Featured in the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Film at Lincoln Center's Series "Seeing the City: Avant-Garde Visions of New York"

From May 3rd to 7th, Film at Lincoln Center and the Film-Makers’ Cooperative mounted a 10-program series of films and video art titled Seeing the City: Avant-Garde Visions of New York from the Film-Makers’ Cooperative Collection and Beyond. Today is the final day of this series, which highlights works from within and outside of the FMC’s archive that chronicle New York City from a diverse array of perspectives. GME is proud to distribute, to the North American university market, titles by a number of filmmakers whose films appear in this series, such as Stan Brakhage, Holly Fisher, Marie Menken, Ian Hugo, Francis Thompson, and Rudy Burckhardt. GME distributes, as well, many other international city symphony films — not only of New York, but also San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Ostend, Granada, Lourdes, Cassis, Brussels, and elsewhere. To view a complete list of our city symphony titles, click here. To read Jon Gartenberg’s article about New York city symphony films, click here.

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GME Celebrates International Jazz Day with Hugh Bell: Jazz Portraits and Album Covers

GME Celebrates International Jazz Day with Hugh Bell: Jazz Portraits and Album Covers

April 30th was declared International Jazz Day by UNESCO in 2011, and has since become the world’s largest celebration of jazz. In honor of International Jazz Day, GME highlights photographs from the Hugh Bell collection that capture a number of jazz legends from the 1950s through the 1980s.

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Warren Sonbert's HOLIDAY Plays in Chicago In "Tone Glow Presents Pop Music as Prismatic Utopia"

Warren Sonbert's HOLIDAY Plays in Chicago In "Tone Glow Presents Pop Music as Prismatic Utopia"

This Friday, April 19th, at 7pm, writer and programmer Joshua Minsoo Kim will screen Warren Sonbert’s FRIENDLY WITNESS in the second film program presented by his experimental music newsletter Tone Glow, titled Pop Music in Prismatic Utopia. The program will play at Chicago’s Sweet Void Cinema, a production company and microcinema located in Humboldt Park. GME is proud to represent the work and legacy of Sonbert, whose films — as evidenced by Kim’s program and a number of other screenings and retrospectives within recent years — have been experiencing a renaissance. FRIENDLY WITNESS, in particular, is a significant title in Sonbert’s oeuvre, as it demarcates his return to sound after many years of making silent montage films.

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Jean-Pierre Melville's BOB LE FLAMBEUR Plays at Film Forum This Month

Jean-Pierre Melville's BOB LE FLAMBEUR Plays at Film Forum This Month

Now through April 11th, Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 French noir LE SAMOURAÏ plays at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration, created from the original 35mm negative by Pathé and The Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata. GME distributes Melville’s earlier gangster film, BOB LE FLAMBEUR, on DSL, DVD, and Blu-Ray to the North American university market.

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Dance Theatre of Harlem Celebrates Its 55th Season and the 90th Birthday of Arthur Mitchell

Dance Theatre of Harlem Celebrates Its 55th Season and the 90th Birthday of Arthur Mitchell

From April 11th to 14th, the Dance Theatre of Harlem will present a festival-style weekend of performances at New York City Center, to honor the legacy of their founder Arthur Mitchell on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Jack Mitchell, whose photography collection GME represents, photographed Arthur Mitchell early in his career. GME was pleased to work in December and January as consultants for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s extensive photography collection.

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Douglas Fairbanks and Benjamin Christensen Films Play at This Year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Douglas Fairbanks and Benjamin Christensen Films Play at This Year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival

At this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival — described by eminent critic Leonard Maltin as “a feast for lovers of classic film and live music that is as elaborate, ambitious, and masterfully mounted as any I've seen” — THE BLACK PIRATE (1926) starring silent-era superstar Douglas Fairbanks, will screen, in addition to HAXAN, directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen. This year’s festival begins on April 10th and runs through April 14th, with Fairbanks’ film playing on opening night. GME is proud to distribute, to the North American university market, 11 Fairbanks films in the DVD collection DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS: A MODERN MUSKETEER. GME also distributes two Christensen titles on DVD in the collection BENJAMIN CHRISTENSEN: SEALED ORDERS / BLIND JUSTICE.

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February 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

February 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

Happy March from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! Today, we’re reflecting on screenings, events, and celebrations from February, in New York City and beyond, related to GME colleagues, as well as titles and/or artists in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. Notably, films by French cinema icons Jackie Raynal and Philippe Garrel screened at Anthology Film Archives, while CARRIAGE TRADE, the magnum opus of Warren Sonbert — whose work and legacy GME is proud to represent — returned to the Centre Pompidou 48 years after it was first shown there.

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GME Distributes Films by Marcel Hanoun, Including UNE SIMPLE HISTOIRE, Which Plays at Anthology Film Archives This Month

GME Distributes Films by Marcel Hanoun, Including UNE SIMPLE HISTOIRE, Which Plays at Anthology Film Archives This Month

As part of their Essential Cinema series, a collection of films screened on a repertory basis, Anthology Film Archives will show Marcel Hanoun’s UNE SIMPLE HISTOIRE (1959) on February 23rd at 6:45pm. GME distributes this title to the North American university market as both a DVD and a DSL file. Additionally, we distribute Hanoun’s OCTOBRE À MADRID (1964) and THE SEASONS (LES SAISONS) (1968-72) on DVD and DSL — the latter being a “quadriptych” made up of Hanoun’s films L’ÉTÉ (1968), L’HIVER (1969), LE PRINTEMPS (1970), and L’AUTOMNE (1972).

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