“Warren Sonbert: Friendly Witness and Other Films” in Atlanta Celebrates Photography Film Series

ACP FILM SERIESEYEDRUM

Warren Sonbert: Friendly Witness and Other Films

Atlanta Celebrates Photography and Film Love         present three nights of films by this crucial figure             of the American avant-garde.  

A "friendly witness," Warren Sonbert (1947-1995) holds a unique place in American independent film. On one hand he shows the distinct influence of Hitchcock and the Hollywood melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and on the other he was a rigorous avant-gardist. Sonbert's films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum and other institutions, but remain available only in 16mm prints and are too rarely screened.

Film Screening: Tue, Oct 26, 7pm - 9pm                                                                     

PROGRAM ONE - Juxtaposing early and late works, tonight's program (one of three) explores the maturation of Sonbert's style as well as his masterful use of music. His early trilogy of short films, set to exuberant rock and roll and documenting the seedy glamour of the 60s New York art world, established Sonbert's notoriety while he was still a teenage film student at NYU. Twenty years later, Sonbert returned to the music soundtrack in his masterpiece Friendly Witness - an intricate and deeply moving mosaic of people and places around the globe.

Film Screening: Thu, Oct 28, 7pm - 9pm                                                               

PROGRAM TWO - Sonbert's later filmmaking combines his precise but unconventional eye for color, composition, and shot content with his intricate and highly personal editing technique. 

Tonight's program presents Sonbert's magnum opus in this style (and his longest film), Carriage Trade.

Film Screening:  Fri, Nov 19, 7pm - 9pm                                                               

PROGRAM THREE - Program three explores Sonbert's career-long fascination with coupling - the dynamics of communication, romance, and desire. Honor and Obey, made at the peak of Sonbert's late period, and The Bad and the Beautiful, a restored 1960s film set to an effective popular music soundtrack. Also screened are films by two of Sonbert's influences, Stan Brakhage and Marie Menken.

Presented by ACP, Film Love and Eyedrum. Curated and hosted by Andy Ditzler for Frequent Small Meals.  Film Love was voted Best Film Series in Atlanta by the critics of Creative Loafing in 2006.

Free Admission

EYEDRUM290 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr,  Suite 8                                                                         Atlanta, GA 30312  [map: Google Maps]                                                                                                             p: (404) 522-0655                                                                                                                                               web: http://www.eyedrum.org