Jonas Mekas
Directing
- Born:
- 1922-12-24
- Died:
- 2019-01-23
- Place of birth:
- Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Biography
Jonas Mekas (24 December 1922 - 23 January 2019) was born in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the War he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949 the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York City, where they settled down in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Two months after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative, and in 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue. During all this time he continued writing poetry and making films. To this date he has published more than 20 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His Lithuanian poetry is now part of Lithuanian classic literature and his films can be found in leading museums around the world. He is largely credited for developing the diaristic forms of cinema. Mekas has also been active as an academic, teaching at the New School for Social Research, the International Center for Photography, Cooper Union, New York University, and MIT. Mekas' film The Brig was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963. Other films include Walden (1969), Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Lost Lost Lost (1975), Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (1990), Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (1992), As I was Moving Ahead I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000), Letter from Greenpoint (2005), Sleepless Nights Stories (2011) and Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man. In 2007, he completed a series of 365 short films released on the internet -- one film every day -- and since then has continued to share new work on his website. Since 2000, Mekas has expanded his work into the area of film installations, exhibiting at the Serpentine Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), PS1 Contemporary Art Center MoMA, Documenta of Kassel, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Venice Biennale.
Known For
Filmography
A Mixtape for Stom
Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
Jonas Mekas Anthology
Fragments of Paradise
Film: The Living Record of Our Memory
Vertigo
Notes for a Déjà vu
Back from New York
The Velvet Underground
9/11: Life Under Attack
The Invisible Father
Tapes
Tiny Tim: King for a Day
Elegy for J.M.
Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party
Cinema and Sanctuary
Self Discovery for Social Survival
Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film
Makeshift (for Mekas)
Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1
Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas
3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)
Jonas Towards Broadway
Beyond the Bolex
Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
Nitsch
I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance
On the Holy Spirit
Memories of Jerome Hiler
EXPRMNTL
I Had Nowhere to Go
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
Últimas correspondencias
Filmstudio, mon amour
A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol
Reconnecting with an Old Friend
Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet
A Report from Venice
All About Bolex
My Birthday
River of Fundament
Have A Good Day!
My Conversations on Film
Jonas in the Jungle
What Is Cinema?
Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
Maya Deren, Take Zero
Reminiscences from Germany
My Paris Movie
My Mars Bar Movie
3.11 A Sense of Home Films
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
Guest
Re: Maciunas and Fluxus
Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas
New York Conversations
Lavender
Visionaries
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
It Came from Kuchar
The Signing
The Perfect Team: The Making of 'On the Bowery'
Doc
Question a Day
Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory
Notes on an American Film Director at Work
365 Day Project
Sunday December 30, 2007
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007
The Song of Central Park
Salvador Dalí at Work
Jonas' Independence Speech at the Anniversary of the Filmmaker's Cooperative
Graffiti Museum Bronx, NYC
End of the Millennium Espresso
Imperfect Film
Taping for As I was Moving Ahead…
Kreutzer Sonata
Anger Me
Notes on Marie Menken
Who Gets to Call It Art?
Meet The Kuchar Brothers
Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master
The Definition of Insanity
Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol
Excavating Taylor Mead
Notes on Utopia
Kulturplatz
A Letter from Greenpoint
Not in Our Name
Axiom of Choice
Jonas Keeps Shooting Around
In the Mirror of Maya Deren
Notes in Lifestyle Margins
A Letter to Penny Arcade
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Requiem for a Manual Typewriter
This Side of Paradise: Fragments of An Unfinished Biography
Letter to John from Jonas
Laboratorium Anthology
Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97
Song of Avignon
My Country is Cinema
Birth of a Nation
Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit
A Poet from the Lower East Side
Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October
Michael Snow Up Close
Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old
Nico Icon
Jonas in the Desert
Jonas Mekas in Budapest
The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus
Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)
Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas
Award
Just Visiting This Planet
Quartet Number One
Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections
Step Across the Border
Belladonna
Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties
Invocation: Maya Deren
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank
Home Movies 1971-81
Persistence of Vision
Strong Medicine
The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man
Travel Songs
No. 18: Mahagonny
Self-Portrait
J. Mekas
ORG
Paradise Not Yet Lost
Cinématon
Four Shadows
Notes for Jerome
Lost, Lost, Lost
Postcard from America
‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen
Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”
Imagine
Going Home
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
Up Your Legs Forever
Ricky Leacock Visit, April 15, 1971
Journey to Lithuania
Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo
Filmmakers
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
A Matter of Baobab
Jonas
Underground New York
The Song of Avila
Poem Posters
![Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/5yEUYxLQWc71aL7OGrhSnpslsQO.jpg)
Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas
Galaxie
The Love Merchant
Shooting Guns
Andy Warhol Screen Tests
Dirt
Jonas in the Brig
Empire
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
Diane the Zebra Woman
The Sin of Jesus
The Lamb
Viva Jonas!
Fragments of an Unfinished Biography of Jackie & Lee