Warren Sonbert Program at Indiana University

Warren Sonbert program at Indiana University's program "An Evening Of Warren Sonbert Short Films", Friday, Nov. 21st at 6:30 pm. Films of Warren Sonbert's to be shown include AMPHETAMINE (1966), NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981), and WHIPLASH (1997).

The 8th Athens (Greece) Avant-garde Film Festival: "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium" A Retrospective Film Program Curated by Jon Gartenberg

A Retrospective Film Program Curated by Jon Gartenberg at the 8th Athens (Greece) Avant-garde Film Festival: "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium"      Athens Avant-garde Film Festival, Greece Wednesday, November 12 - Sunday, November 23 PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: This program provides a panorama of American experimental films made in the 21st century and focuses primarily on feature length narratives (both fiction and documentary), together with a complement of shorts.  Because these filmmakers lack the funding provided by Hollywood and "off-Hollywood" producers, they often struggle for long periods to complete their films.  At the same time, the creative independence that they have been afforded provides the individual filmmakers with great freedom of expression.  This talented group of artists, toiling mostly in solitude, created inspiring works that challenge, in thematic, structural, technical, and perceptual fashion, the manner in which we, as spectators, perceive the world at large. Stylistically, the films in this retrospective series encompass found footage works, diverse hand-crafted animation techniques, live action movies that experiment with formal structure, as well as hybrid documentary and fiction forms.  The contemporary artists in this program (while versed in the history of the avant-garde), are more consciously engaged with narrative cinema traditions, if only to then subvert them through their diverse storytelling strategies.  They most frequently represent time and space in a manner that tends to disrupt the illusion of spatial and temporal continuity, and to foreground the experience of memory.  Thematically, the films in this program incorporate reflections upon individual identity, the family structure, the fabric of the community, and the larger political culture, that are presented most often in critical and/or self-critical fashion.  They directly address significant social issues, including the tragic events of 9/11, presidential politics and political resistance, the earth's ecology, human diaspora and race relations, and the myth of the post World War II nuclear American family.  Please see pages 34-45 of the Festival Catalog, viewable and downloadable as a PDF Document here:   "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium"

Pesaro Film Festival - Program of American Experimental Narratives Curated by Jon Gartenberg

A Retrospective Film Program Curated by Jon Gartenberg at the 50th Annual Pesaro Film Festival: "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium"   Pesaro Film Festival, Italy Monday, June 23 - Saturday, June 28 PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Since the 1960s, the United States has been a vibrant center of avant-garde filmmaking. Curator Jon Gartenberg's program offers a lesser-known face of US cinema in the Third Millennium (2001-2014).  No longer restricted to the underground experimentation of the past, today's equally innovative films incorporate more narrative elements. The selected films - by James Benning, John Gianvito, Penny Lane, Marie Losier, Ian Olds and James Franco, Jennifer Reeves, and Chris Sullivan - to name only a few - were made outside the dominant realm of commercial production, granting the directors great freedom from formal expression. Ranging from found footage and animation to live action and the hybrid form of docu-fiction, these stylistically heterogeneous films offer a compelling view of the American cultural and socio-political landscape.  Collectively, the filmmakers and their films touch upon the themes of individual identity, family dynamics, community, and the larger political culture. This retrospective film series comprises 17 film programs; an additional midnight screening of short films by the 6 American filmmakers in attendance at the festival (John Canemaker, Abigail Child, Thomas Allen Harris, Bill Morrison, Matthew Porterfield, and Julie Talen); a roundtable discussion with curator Jon Gartenberg, Festival Director Giovanni Spagnoletti, and these 6 filmmakers; and a master class by animation historian and filmmaker John Canemaker. For a description of the films in the retrospective, together with curator Jon Gartenberg's essay on this exhibition, please see pages 38-95 of the Festival Catalog, viewable and downloadable as a PDF Document here: "A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives  in the New Millennium"

Warren Sonbert Films Screening in Paris Tribute to the "New York Underground"

Warren Sonbert Films Screening in  Paris Tribute to the New York Underground     Warren Sonbert with his film camera Two of Warren Sonbert's films, Amphetamine and Where Did Our Love Go? will be shown in the retrospective "New York Underground" organized by Documentaire sur grand écran, as part of a tribute to Bleecker Street Cinema.  Both films are screening in Paris at the Filmothèque du Quartier Latin on Saturday evening, November 23.       Beginning at age 15, Warren Sonbert, a Brooklyn native, regularly attended screenings at the Bleecker Street cinema.  He became friendly with the management, and, in 1965, at age 16 (!) he served as Editor-in-Chief of a special edition of New York Film Bulletin  on Jean-Luc Godard.  This magazine was regularly edited in the basement of the Bleecker Street Cinema, and this issue (number forty-six) already reveals Sonbert's precocious genius and deep appreciation of the voice of the cinematic auteur, as revealed in his one-on-one interview with Godard: "WS:  In Truffaut's La Peau Douce various banal objects (telephones, lights, shoes) play a significant role.  Is there any similarity in the continual presence of spherical objects and motions in Bande a Part? J-LG:  No, all that was accidental.  But you know, now that I think of it, what you said about round objects often seen in Bande a Part: the last shot is of the world which is round, you know - so maybe you're right."  AMPHETAMINE (1966) In February 1966, as a filmmaking student at New York University, Sonbert shot his first film (with Wendy Appel), entitled Amphetamine, about which he wrote, "First film, heavily influenced by Godard and Warhol - designed to shock".  His next movie, Where Did Our Love Go?, is, according to film critic James Stoller, "both a valentine and a farewell to a generation".  WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO? (1966) Warren Sonbert subsequently showed his films at Bleecker Street cinema.  Where Did Our Love Go? contains the only known footage of the interior of this movie theater during the period that it was founded and owned by Lionel Rogosin. Before he turned 21, Sonbert also secured a complete retrospective showing of his films at The Film-Makers' Cinematheque; the film critic for Variety wrote:  "Probably not since Andy Warhol's 'The Chelsea Girls' had its first showing at the Cinematheque...almost a year and a half ago has an 'underground' film event caused as much curiosity and interest in N.Y's non-underground world as did four days of showings of the complete films of Warren Sonbert at the Cinematheque's new location on Wooster St. last weekend (Thurs. - Sun. Jan 25-28).  And as before, the crowds (many turned away each night) were attributed to press reports." For a trailer of the "New York Underground" retrospective, featuring filmmaker Warren Sonbert, click here. For full program information, click here. For more information about Warren Sonbert & an international touring retrospective of his films, click here, or contact:  info@gartenbergmedia.com.

Warren Sonbert Retrospective at Tate Modern

Warren Sonbert Retrospective at Tate Modern     Warren Sonbert with his film camera © The Estate of Warren Sonbert   Tate Modern, London Thursday 24 October - Sunday 27 October Warren Sonbert is one of the seminal figures in American experimental film. A precocious talent, he had his first career retrospective before he turned 21 years old, establishing his reputation early as a key innovator in New York's counter-culture during the 1960s. Encouraged to take up filmmaking by Gregory Markopolous, his early works were populated by denizens of Warhol's scene such as superstar René Ricard and Gerard Malanga, as well as art critic Henry Geldzhaler. Often characterised as diaristic, his films pay close attention to intimate details of his surroundings and relationships that evolved from his living in New York and San Francisco, but also developed a unique lyrical form that transcends their quotidian detail to explore our individual human position in the world at large. Defined by many contrasting influences from rock-and-roll to opera, from Douglas Sirk's classic Hollywood melodramas to the montage theories of Dziga Vertov, his films constantly question the world around him and positions the minutiae of day-to-day experience in an epic, international framework. His complex editing style - cutting rapidly between time periods, cultures and continents - creates a polyphonic cinema embraced equally by film and by literary circles leading to his close association with the New York School and Language Poets from the San Francisco Bay Area (including Michael Brownstein, Larry Fagin and Anne Waldman as well as Carla Harryman and Charles Bernstein). The first complete retrospective of his work in the UK, this series will position newly restored works alongside films by his peers such as Stan Brakhage, Abigail Child, Nathaniel Dorsky, Gerard Malanga, Gregory Markopoulos, Jeff Scher, and Andy Warhol, as well as Douglas Sirk's feature film Tarnished Angels (1957). A special panel discussion with archivist Jon Gartenberg, writer Lynne Tillman and historian James Boaden, follows the Warren Sonbert: Where Did Our Love Go? programme on Saturday 26 October. Co-curated by Jon Gartenberg with Tate Film. Individual screenings introduced by Jon Gartenberg The films of Warren Sonbert were preserved through the efforts of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS in cooperation with the Academy Film Archive. Archivist Jon Gartenberg developed this film preservation initiative with the support of Ascension Serrano (The Estate of Warren Sonbert) and John Hanhardt (former senior curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). The prints of Warren Sonbert's films in this retrospective exhibition are made available through Light Cone (Paris), the European distributor of his films. Program notes for this series by Jon Gartenberg, with additional contributions by George Clark. Tate Film is supported by Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation   Events in this series Warren Sonbert: Amphetamine Thursday 24 October 2013, 19.00 - 21.00 Warren Sonbert: The Bad and the Beautiful Friday 25 October 2013, 19.00 - 20.30 Warren Sonbert: Postcards from Warren Friday 25 October 2013, 21.00 - 22.30 Warren Sonbert: Douglas Sirk's Tarnished Angels Saturday 26 October 2013, 15.00 - 17.00 Warren Sonbert: Honor and Obey Saturday 26 October 2013, 17.00 - 18.30 Warren Sonbert: Where Did Our Love Go? Saturday 26 October 2013, 19.00 - 21.00 Warren Sonbert: Truth Serum Sunday 27 October 2013, 15.00 - 17.00 Warren Sonbert: Rude Awakening Sunday 27 October 2013, 17.00 - 19.00 Warren Sonbert: Short Fuse Sunday 27 October 2013, 19.00 - 21.00

Jon Gartenberg Appears in VITO - The New HBO Documentary on the Life of Vito Russo

"Directed by award-winner Jeffrey Schwarz, VITO paints a touching portrait of this outspoken

activist in the LGBT community’s struggle for equal rights, using period footage and film 

clips to capture a vibrant era of gay culture. “If you’re going to talk about the gay-rights 

movement, you’re going to talk about Vito,” says journalist David Ehrenstein.

The documentary features rich archival interviews with Vito, as well as insights from gay

rights activists, including: Larry Kramer and Arthur Evans; film scholars, among them

former MoMA film curator Jon Gartenberg; and journalists/writers such as Michael

Schiavi and Gabriel Rotello.  VITO also offers personal accounts from his many friends,

including Lily Tomlin and Bruce Vilanch, and his family members, including brother

Charles Russo and cousin Phyllis Antonellis.

Vito’s love of movies guided him to a job in the film department at the Museum of Modern

Art, where he began taking note of gay characters in early films. The result of his research

was “The Celluloid Closet,” an entertaining and informative lecture and clip show that

combined his love of show business and radical gay politics, which he took on the road to

gay film festivals and college campuses. His seminal 1981 book of the same name 

explored the ways gays and lesbians were portrayed on film, what lessons those characters

taught gay and straight audiences, and how those negative images were at the root of

society’s homophobia. The book was later adapted into the 1995 HBO Peabody Award-

winning documentary “The Celluloid Closet,” directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman..."

Tribeca Film Festival Experimental Film Selections Receive Theatrical Distribution

In his capacity as Experimental-Film Programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival,

Jon Gartenberg selected two films for TFF 2011 that, we are proud to announce,

have received U.S. distribution and are currently playing around the country - 

Bill Morrison's THE MINERS' HYMN from Icarus Films &

Marie Losier's THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE from Adopt Films. 

Bill Morrison's THE MINERS' HYMNS (2011)

The ill-fated coal mining communities in North East England are the subject of this inspired documentary by multi-media artist Bill Morrison. Their story is told entirely without words, yet the film is far from silent: it features a remarkable original score by the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Using rarely-seen footage from the British Film Institute, the BBC, and other archives, THE MINERS' HYMNS celebrates social, cultural, and political aspects of the extinct industry. Focusing on the Durham coalfield located in northeastern England, it depicts the hardship of pit work, the role of Trade Unions in organizing and fighting for workers' rights, the years of increased mechanization and the annual Miners' Gala in Durham.

• In U.S. Distribution through ICARUS FILMS.

• Theatrical Run begins on February 8th, 2012 at New York's FILM FORUM.

• US Release / DATE AND THEATRES.

Marie Losier's THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE (2011)

An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his other half and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their “Pandrogyne” project.

• In U.S. Distribution through ADOPT FILMS.

• Theatrical Run begins on March 8th, 2012 in NYC at the CHELSEA CINEMAS.

• US Release / DATE AND THEATRES.

Warren Sonbert's AMPHETAMINE and Other Works Featured in Recent Exhibitions in NYC & London

AMPHETAMINE, along with other films by Warren Sonbert, was recently featured in two presentations - one in New York and one in London - each focusing on the works of queer and underground filmmakers. 

04/25/2012  •NEW YORK•DIRTY LOOKS

Dirty Looks is a Monthly Platform for

    Queer Experimental Film and Video

    Bradford Nordeen's April program featured works by

    "two key figures in queer and underground film" 

    Warren Sonbert and Tom Chomont.

    The program included Warren Sonbert's 

AMPHETAMINE (1966, with Wendy Appel),

DIVIDED LOYALTIES (1975-78) and 

HONOR AND OBEY (1987).

04/14/2012  •LONDON•  THE LITTLE JOE CLUBHOUSE

    The Little Joe Clubhouse is a unique  

temporary film space from the creators of 

    a magazine about queers and cinema, mostly.

    In a special program, as part of this year's

    AMPHETAMINE (1966), was presented by Stuart Comer,

    Film Curator at London's Tate Modern.

IN THE STREET by James Agee, Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb Premieres on ARTE TV France

IN THE STREET (1952)

Photographed by James Agee, Helen Levitt & Janice Loeb.

Edited by Helen Levitt.

ARTE Televison France broadcast a rare presentation of IN THE STREET on May 28, 2012 as part of a series entitled “Black & White”, illuminating the diversity and aesthetics of classic films photographed in black-and-white. 

GME was pleased to successfully negotiate this deal with Arte on behalf of the estate of the photographer Helen Levitt.   GME was credited at the end of the film’s broadcast as follows: 

"Film provided courtesy of the Estate of Helen Levitt, Cecile Starr, and Gartenberg Media Enterprises."

Photo © The Estate of Helen Levitt.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

In 2006, IN THE STREET was selected by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and added to the United States National Film Registry preservation program:

"This lyrical, slice-of-life documentary (by Helen Levitt, James Agee and Janice Loeb) about East Harlem is one of several outstanding children’s documentaries (“The Quiet One” and “Louisiana Story,” among others) produced immediately after World War II. The filmmakers captured the energy-filled streets as part theater, part battleground and part playground. In their everyday lives and actions, people project an image of human existence against the turmoil of the street." - www.loc.gov

CYCLOPEAN 3D: LIFE WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN GME Presents Ken Jacobs' Latest Stereoscopic Feature - Opening Sequence Screened in Rotterdam @ IFFR 2012

Download CYCLOPEAN 3D IFFR 2012 PDF