"A protégé of the avant-garde filmmaker Gregory J. Markopoulos but inspired by the work of Hollywood "auteurs" like Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk as well as by experimental cinema, Sonbert premiered his first, short films, to critical enthusiasm, in 1966 while a student at New York University.His first film, "Amphetamine", featured a shock cut to two young men passionately embracing as the camera swooped around them in the youthful cinephile's homage to the 360-degree kiss in Hitchcock's "Vertigo".