Shoot Shoot Shoot: The London Film-Makers’ Co-op – Harvard Film Archive, November 4th

The Harvard Film Archive will be screening films from the London Film-Makers' Co-op as part of its program "Shoot Shoot Shoot" on Friday November 4th. The title for its program comes from  a telegram addressed to Jonas Mekas and the New York Coop, announcing the formation of the London Film-Maker's Cooperative in 1966. GME distributes the DVD title of the same name featuring many of the same filmmakers exhibited in this Harvard program.

From the Harvard Film Archive Website

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, this screening presents a selection of work by some of innovative film artists who gathered there in its formative years: David Crosswaite, Marilyn Halford, Malcolm Le Grice, Mike Leggett, Annabel Nicolson, William Raban, Lis Rhodes and John Smith.

Inspired by the example set by Jonas Mekas and his colleagues in New York, the London Co-op was founded in 1966. In contrast to similar organizations, the LFMC’s activity was not limited to distribution; within a few years it was running a regular program in its own cinema and, most notably, had a workshop in which filmmakers could control every stage of the creative process.

GME Celebrates Jonas Mekas's Birthday with the Release of Two New Publications of His Films Now Available on DVD for Institutional Sales

GME Celebrates Jonas Mekas's Birthday  With the Release of 2 New Publications of His Films Now Available on DVD for Institutional Sales On the occasion of Jonas Mekas's 92nd birthday (on XMAS eve of this year), Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) is pleased to announce the release of two new DVD publications by this monumental and consequential artist.  Published on DVD by Re:Voir Vidéo -- GUNS OF THE TREES and THE SIXTIES QUARTET -- are now available for institutional sales in North America.   Jonas Mekas is the most significant force behind the evolution and promotion of the American Avant-Garde film movement, as well as one of its most prolific independent filmmakers and pre-eminent cinema poets. Following up on our release last semester of JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS, we now offer both his rarely seen first feature length film, GUNS OF THE TREES, a fictional narrative of the Beat Generation, as well as, in a more poetic vein, THE SIXTIES QUARTET, that features portraits of Andy Warhol, George Maciunas, John Lennon, and the Kennedy family at Warhol's compound in Montauk, just several years after the assassination of President Kennedy.       GUNS OF THE TREES "Four young people are trying to understand why their friend, a young woman, committed a suicide. A film made up of disconnected scenes weaving between past and present. The title of the film comes from a poem by Stuart Perkoff which tells that some young people felt (around 1960) that everything is against them, so much that even the trees in the parks and streets seemed to them like guns pointing at their very existence." - Jonas Mekas Grand Prize / Grand prix (Najade d'oro)  Mostra Internazionale del Cinema Libero di Porretta Terme, 1962   GUNS OF THE TREES Jonas Mekas   USA (1961) DVD-PAL   Region 0 No Regional Code Institutional Sale Price: $ 200.00 plus shipping & handling.    THE SIXTIES QUARTET Scenes From The Life Of Andy Warhol: Friendships And Intersections (1990) "This film is made up of my film diaries relating to Andy Warhol from the years 1965-1982."                                                                       - Jonas Mekas Zefiro Torna Or Scenes From The Life Of George Maciunas (1992) "Bits of Fluxus events and performances, and picnics with friends (Almus, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, etc.), George's wedding and footage I took of him in Boston hospital three days before he died."          - Jonas Mekas Happy Birthday To John (1995) "On October 9th, 1972, half of the music world gathered in Syracuse, N.Y., to celebrate the opening of John Lennon/Yoko Ono Fluxus show, designed by George Maciunas.  Same day, a smaller group gathered in a local hotel room to celebrate John's birthday."                                                     - Jonas Mekas This Side Of Paradise (1999) with Jackie, Caroline and John Kennedy Jr. "Unpredictably, as most of my life's key events have been, for a period of several years in the late 60s and early 70s, I had the fortune to spend some time, mostly during the summers, with Jackie Kennedy's and her sister Lee Radziwill's families and children. Cinema was an integral, inseparable, as a matter of fact, a key part of our friendship. The time was still very close to the untimely, tragic, death of John F. Kennedy. Jackie wanted to give something to her children to do, to help to ease the transition of life without a father. One of her thoughts was that movie camera would be fun for the children. Peter Beard, who was at that time tutoring John Jr. and Caroline in art history, suggested to Jackie that I was the man to introduce the children to cinema. Jackie said yes. And that's how it all began. I bought them a very easily operable 16mm movie camera, and even wrote a "mini-textbook" suggesting some simple movie exercises... The images in the exposition, with a few exceptions, they all come from the summers Caroline and John Jr. spent in Montauk, with their cousins Anthony and Tina Radziwill, in an old house Lee rented from Andy Warhol, for a few summers. Andy himself spent many of his weekends there, in one of the cottages, as did Peter Beard, whom the children had adopted almost like their older brother or a father they missed. There were summers of happiness, joy and continuous celebrations of life and friendships. These are 'Little Fragments of Paradise.' "                                                   -Jonas Mekas   THE SIXTIES QUARTET Jonas Mekas   USA (1990-1999) DVD-PAL   Region 0 No Regional Code Institutional Sale Price: $ 200.00 plus shipping & handling.      Works of Related Interest from GME:  HALLELUJAH THE HILLS Adolfas Mekas    USA (1963) JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS Jonas Mekas    USA (1964-2002) 7-Disc DVD Collection For a complete list of DVD and Blu-ray publications from our entire library of distribution titles, as a printable PDF, click here.   These DVDs are currently being made available to universities, libraries, museums, and other educational organizations in North America (US and Canada), and include public performance rights. Public performance rights extend to use in classrooms and in other non-commercial settings where no admission is charged. Please Note: Many of our DVDs are published in PAL format Region 0.   PAL DVDs require a PAL or Multi-system DVD player for playback. Order by Phone @ 212.280.8654 or by Fax @ 212.280.8656 For inquiries and to order by e-mail, contact: sales@gartenbergmedia.com For our entire DVD catalogue, please visit: www.gartenbergmedia.com/dvd/

GME Announces JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS on DVD for Institutional Sales in North America

Gartenberg Media Announces JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS  on DVD Available for North American Institutional Sales Gartenberg Media Enterprises is very proud to announce the addition of JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS to our catalog of DVD titles available for institutional sales in North America.  This 7-Disc DVD Box Set, co-published by Re:Voir Video, Agnès B DVD and Potemkine, brings together, for the very first time, the key films created by Jonas Mekas.  These collected works, that span a filming career of more than 60 years, re-affirm his stature as one of the most prolific avant-garde filmmakers and pre-eminent cinema poets. Jonas Mekas was born in Lithuania in 1922.  In 1944, Jonas and his brother Adolfas (HALLELUJAH THE HILLS - also available from GME) were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Germany. After WWII he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz.  At the end of 1949, the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York, where they settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Immediately acquiring a 16mm Bolex camera, Jonas began filming his surrounding environment and friends, that he later assembled into films primarily centered on the dual themes of exile and assimilation. Jonas developed his diary style of filmmaking while simultaneously becoming immersed as a magazine editor and publisher (Film Culture), film critic (The Village Voice), distributor (the New York Film-Makers Cooperative), programmer (the Film-Makers' Cinematheque), and archivist (Anthology Film Archives).  In short, Mekas soon became, in singular fashion, the most significant force behind the evolution and promotion of the American Avant-Garde film movement.   "Mekas's enthusiasm for his contemporaries and his modesty and reticence about his own achievements as a film-maker contributed to an underestimation of his stature in the sixties and seventies...Congruent with the magnitude of his recording of the pulse of the New York art world for forty years is his slow revelation of the reflective self. By the nineties it was apparent that Mekas was one of the central filmmakers of the American avant-garde." - P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film    "Since 1950, I have been keeping a film diary.  I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the immediate reality:  situations, friends, New York, seasons of the year.   On some days I shot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others ten minutes.  Or I shoot nothing.  When one writes diaries, its' a retrospective process:  you sit down, you look back at your day, and you write it all down.  To keep a film (camera) diary, is to react (with your camera) immediately, now, this instant:  either you get it now or you don't get it at all.  To go back and shoot it later, it would mean restating, be it events or feelings.  To get it now, as it happens, demands the total mastery of one's tools (in this case, Bolex): it has to register my state of feeling (and the memories) as I react.  Which also means that I had to do all the structuring (editing) right there, during the shooting, in the camera." - Jonas Mekas     JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS This DVD boxed set comprises the following 16 films: THE BRIG (1964)  65 minutes. WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES AND SKETCHES (1969)  180 minutes. REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (1972)  82 minutes. LOST LOST LOST (1976)  65 minutes. AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY (2000)  285 minutes / 2-Disc Set SHORT FILM WORKS Cassis (1966)  4 minutes. Notes on the Circus (1966)  12 minutes. Hare Krishna (1966)  4 minutes. Report from Millbrook (1965-66)  12 minutes. Time and Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1968)  4 minutes. Travel Songs (1967-81)  25 minutes. Quartet Number One (1991)  8 minutes. Imperfect Three-Image Films (1995)  6 minutes. Song of Avignon (1998)  5 minutes. Mozart, Wien & Elvis (2000)  3 minutes. Williamsburg (1949-2002)  15 minutes.   7-Disc DVD Collection DVD-PAL Region 0 / No Regional Code.  With English, French & Lithuanian subtitles.   Institutional Sale Price: $ 800.00 plus shipping & handling.     Watch for our Next DVD Release Newsletter Coming Soon!     These DVDs are currently being made available to universities, libraries, museums, and other educational organizations in North America (US and Canada), and include public performance rights. Public performance rights extend to use in classrooms and in other non-commercial settings where no admission is charged. Please Note: Many of our DVDs are published in PAL format Region 0.   PAL DVDs require a PAL or Multi-system DVD player for playback. Order by Phone @ 212.280.8654 or by Fax @ 212.280.8656 For inquiries and to order by e-mail, contact: sales@gartenbergmedia.com For our entire DVD catalogue, please visit: www.gartenbergmedia.com/dvd/

THE FILMS OF ADOLFAS MEKAS - A Retrospective Tribute at Anthology Film Archives October 20-27

THE FILMS OF ADOLFAS MEKAS

October 20 - October 27

Anthology Film Archives and the avant-garde film community at large suffered a great loss this past spring with the passing of Adolfas Mekas.  A gifted filmmaker and legendary figure at Bard College, where he founded the film department and taught for more than three decades, Adolfas came to New York from Lithuania with his brother Jonas (Anthology’s co-founder and Artistic Director) in 1949. After launching Film Culture magazine together, the Mekas brothers turned to filmmaking, collaborating on GUNS OF THE TREES and THE BRIG.  Adolfas would soon go on to produce a remarkable body of work of his own, with films including HALLELUJAH THE HILLS, WINDFLOWERS, and GOING HOME.

A seminal figure in the history of independent cinema, and an always warm, often hilarious presence in the lives of his many friends, family members, and students, Adolfas Mekas will be greatly missed.  In tribute to his life and work, Anthology presents this comprehensive retrospective of his work.

Very special thanks to Pola Chapelle, as well as to Barbara Stone, Gabrielle Claes (Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique), and Daniel Wagner & Daniel Bish (George Eastman House).

Please note: following the retrospective of Adolfas Mekas’s work, we will be presenting a series in honor of a friend and collaborator of Adolfas’s, the producer, distributor, and filmmaker David C. Stone, who also passed away earlier this year.

Upcoming Screenings

Adolfas Mekas

WINDFLOWERS

October 20 at 7:00 PM

October 24 at 8:45 PM

Jonas and Adolfas Mekas

THE BRIG

October 20 at 9:15 PM

October 24 at 7:00 PM

Adolfas Mekas

GOING HOME

October 21 at 7:00 PM

October 22 at 8:45 PM

October 26 at 7:00 PM

Jonas Mekas

GUNS IN THE TREES

October 21 at 9:15 PM

October 23 at 4:45 PM

Philip Kaufman & Benjamin Manaster

GOLDSTEIN

October 22 at 4:15 PM

October 23 at 8:30 PM

Adolfas Mekas

THE DOUBLE-BARRELLED DETECTIVE STORY

October 22 at 6:30 PM

October 26 at 9:00 PM

Barbara Stone, David C. Stone, and Adolfas Mekas

COMPAÑERAS AND COMPAÑEROS

October 23 at 6:30 PM

Adolfas Mekas

HALLELUJAH THE HILLS

October 27 at 7:00 PM

Adolfas Mekas' HALLELUJAH THE HILLS

Available on DVD for INSTITUTIONAL SALES

     HALLELUJAH THE HILLS

      (1963)  Adolfas Mekas.

      Format: DVD PAL / Region 0, No Regional Code.   

      Institutional Sale Price: $200.00 plus shipping & handling.

These DVDs are available on an exclusive basis for sale to educational organizations in North America (universities, libraries, & other cultural institutions), and include public performance rights. Public performance rights extend to use in classrooms and in other non-commercial settings where no admission is charged.

For more information on the these titles visit here.

For information on ordering by fax, email or post visit here.

To order by phone please call: 212.280.8654

Adolfas Mekas's HALLELUJAH THE HILLS and Fluxus: FLUXFILM ANTHOLOGY New on DVD & Available Now for North American Institutional Sales

  HALLELUJAH THE HILLS

  (1963)  Adolfas Mekas.

  Format: DVD PAL / Region 0, No Regional Code.   

  Institutional Sale Price: $200.00 plus shipping & handling.

FLUXFILM ANTHOLOGY

  (1962-1979)  FLUXUS: Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins,

George Macuinas, Chieko Shiomi, John Cavanaugh,  

James Riddle, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Robert Watts, 

Pieter Vanderbiek, Joe Jones, Eric Anderson, Jeff Perkins,

Wolf Vostell, Albert Fine, George Landow, Paul Sharits,

  John Cale, Peter Kennedy, Mike Parr, Ben Vautier.

  Format: DVD PAL / Region 0, No Regional Code.   

  Institutional Sale Price: $200.00 plus shipping & handling.

These DVDs are available on an exclusive basis for sale to educational organizations in North America (universities, libraries, & other cultural institutions), and include public performance rights. Public performance rights extend to use in classrooms and in other non-commercial settings where no admission is charged.

For more information on the these titles visit here.

For information on ordering by fax, email or post visit here.

To order by phone please call: 212.280.8654