Summer 2023 Roundup of Screenings Related to GME's DSL, DVD, & Blu-ray Offerings
/With the end of summer fast approaching, GME returns from our seasonal hiatus to recap a slew of exciting screenings that happened between June and August, in New York City and beyond, featuring films and/or filmmakers in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. From Warren Sonbert to Michael Snow, Stan Brakhage to Marie Menken, these engaging programs highlighted key works by cinematic titans spanning narrative, documentary, and experimental modalities. Stay tuned for announcements about screenings of GME titles in the near future!
Still: ROBERT KRAMER’s GUNS (1980).
June 5th — Brooklyn Academy of Music
Robert Kramer’s GUNS — a “leftist exploration of Cold War era paranoia,” made in 1980 and inspired by the films of New Hollywood, screened at BAM on Monday, June 5th, 2023, at 7pm, as part of a Juliet Berto retrospective (Berto stars in the film as a journalist’s “mournful lover,” offering a performance “less stoic and more feeling than [her] earlier work”). GME distributes GUNS on DVD and DSL, along with three other Kramer films: THE EDGE, ICE, and IN THE COUNTRY.
DVD COVERS OF LEOPOLD LINDTBERG’S THE LAST CHANCE (1945) AND SWISS TOUR (1949).
June 24th — Il Cinema Ritrovato
From June 24th to June 28th, 2023, Il Cinema Ritrovato screened six films by filmmaker and actor Leopold Lindtberg, in an exciting retrospective curated by Frédéric Maire, including Lindtberg’s Cannes and Golden Globe-winning masterwork from 1945, THE LAST CHANCE. GME distributes THE LAST CHANCE and another Lindtberg title, SWISS TOUR (1949), on DVD, in collaboration with Praesens-Film.
STILL: JOHN SHLESINGER’S MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969).
July 20th — Film Forum
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 Nancy Buirski’s documentary DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY, AND THE LEGEND OF ‘MIDNIGHT COWBOY’, which played at Film Forum through July 20th, 2023. This critically-acclaimed documentary, about a dark and difficult cinematic masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it, set in New York during a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change, also appeared at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, and now screens throughout North America as a Zeitgeist Release via Kino Lorber.
GME notes the passing of director Nancy Buirski, friend and collaborator, at the age of 78, on August 30th, 2023.
POSTER BY MATT McKINZIE/THE FILM-MAKERS’ COOPERATIVE. STILL: TORTURED DUST (1984) BY STAN BRAKHAGE.
July 21st — The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
Three overlooked Stan Brakhage films from the 1980s that have never been digitized — TORTURED DUST (1984), NODES (1981), and MATINS (1988) — screened at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative on 16mm on Friday, July 21st, 2023, at 7pm. GME distributes Brakhage’s 1958 film ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT on DVD and DSL; this film’s rejection from Cinema 16 led to the creation of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative as the first non-exclusive, artist-run archive and distributor for alternative films and filmmakers.
STILL: LA DIXIEME SYMPHONIE (1918) BY ABEL GANCE, VIA MOMA.
August 5th — MoMA
LA DIXIEME SYMPHONIE, a 1918 feature by Abel Gance “made right before his international breakthrough with J’ACCUSE,” played at MoMA on Saturday, August 5th, at 4pm, as part of their ongoing program Silent Movie Week. Though this film lives in the shadow of much of Gance’s work that would follow in the 1920s, “most of the elements of his mature style are [nonetheless] present, from the extravagant stylistic experimentation (including an anticipation of the widescreen framing of Napoleon) to the unbridled grandiosity shared by protagonist and filmmaker.” GME distributes Gance’s J’ACCUSE (1919) and LA ROUE (1923) on DVD.
PORTRAIT OF FILMMAKER LAV DIAZ, VIA LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL.
August 6th — Locarno Film Festival
Lav Diaz’s ESSENTIAL TRUTHS OF THE LAKE played at the Locarno Film Festival from August 6th to August 8th, 2023. Diaz is a Philipine filmmaker born in 1958. He is “especially notable for the length of his work, his films not being governed by time but by space and nature. His work mostly deals with the social and political struggles of his motherland.” This fall, GME will distribute Diaz’s film BATANG WEST SIDE in addition to his short THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH on DVD and DSL in collaboration with Filmmuseum.
STILL: LES TOURNESOLS (1982) BY ROSE LOWDER, COURTESY OF CANYON CINEMA, VIA NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART.
August 13th — National Gallery of Art
Rose Lowder’s gorgeous, 3-minute, 16mm wonder LES TOURNESOLS played at the National Gallery of Art on Sunday, August 13th, 2023, at 2pm, as part of Margaret Rorison’s exciting series Summer of 16mm: 100 Years of Film. GME distributes five of Lowder’s films, spanning 1978 to 1995, on both DVD and DSL, in the collection BOUQUET D’IMAGES.
STILL: CARRIAGE TRADE (1972) BY WARREN SONBERT.
August 15th — Anthology Film Archives
Warren Sonbert’s CARRIAGE TRADE — an evocative, work-in-progress travelogue made in 1972 — screened at Anthology on Tuesday, August 15th, 2023, at 7pm, as part of their Essential Cinema series: a special program of films shown on a repertory basis that consists of 330 titles assembled by the institution’s selection committee between 1970 and 1975. (The film was originally scheduled to screen three days earlier, on August 12th). GME distributes five Sonbert films on DSL, with CARRIAGE TRADE forthcoming in our collection.
STILL: *CORPUS CALLOSUM (2002) BY MICHAEL SNOW, VIA MoMA.
August 22nd — MoMA
Michael Snow’s *CORPUS CALLOSUM is “an uncanny parade of digitally altered phenomena” made in 2002 and set in a Toronto high-rise. Compared favorably to the work of Frank Tashlin by critic J. Hoberman, this avant-garde opus played at MoMA as part of their summer screening series Here and There: Journeying through Film, on Tuesday, August 22nd, at 7pm. GME distributes Snow’s 1974 masterpiece RAMEAU’S NEPHEW on DVD and DSL.
“EYE CANDY: THE COMING OF COLOR” VIA MOMA’S WEBSITE.
August 24th-31st — MoMA
Eight early films by Georges Méliès, and Alexandre Volkoff’s 1927 feature THE LOVES OF CASANOVA, screened in MoMA’s ongoing series Eye Candy: The Coming of Color, which “documents the history of efforts to bring color to motion pictures. Highlighting the use of tinting, hand- and stencil-coloring, and the early experimental systems that predate Technicolor, the series offers restored versions of shorts, features, and avant-garde animation from the United States, France, and Britain, in 17 programs of works produced between 1894 and 1937.” The Méliès program screened on Thursday, August 24th, at 4pm, while Volkoff’s feature played on Thursday, August 31st, at 7pm, with live piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura. GME distributes 173 films by Méliès in an unprecedented, 5-disc boxset titled GEORGES MÉLIÈS: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA (1896-1913), in addition to 26 recently re-discovered films of his, in a collection titled GEORGES MÉLIÈS: ENCORE - NEW DISCOVERIES (1896-1911). GME also distributes, on DVD, Volkoff’s 10-part serial from 1923, THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY (LA MAISON DU MYSTÈRE).
POSTER BY PHILOMENA MATTES/THE FILM-MAKERS’ COOPERATIVE.
August 26th — The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
Marie Menken’s visually arresting, 1964 gem GO GO GO played in the Coney Island-themed program DREAMLAND: THE CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative on Friday, August 25th, at 7pm. GME distributes four Menken films as bonus features on the DVD/DSL bundle release of Martina Kudláček’s 2006 documentary NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN.
STILL: DU SANG, DE LA VOLUPTE ET DE LA MORT (1947-48) BY GREGORY MARKOPOULOS, VIA LIGHT INDUSTRY.
August 29th — Light Industry
On Tuesday, August 29th, 2023, Light Industry presented a rare screening of Gregory Markopoulos’s DU SANG, DE LA VOLUPTE ET DE LA MORT, a trilogy consisting of PSYCHE, LYSIS, and CHARMIDES. Markopoulos was an integral figure in Warren Sonbert’s life: when Sonbert was 17, Markopoulos loaned him his first Bolex camera. Sonbert referred to Markopoulos as his “first love.”