
Jonas Mekas
Born December 24, 1922 · Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Jonas Mekas (24-12-1922 - 23-1-2019) 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.
More Movies

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

Imagine

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

365 Day Project

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

Guest

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

Cinématon

‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen

It Came from Kuchar

Persistence of Vision

A Poet from the Lower East Side

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

9/11: Life Under Attack

The Velvet Underground

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

Birth of a Nation

Jonas in the Desert

Home Movies 1971-81

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

Fragments of Paradise

Doc

The Definition of Insanity

River of Fundament

Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties

What Is Cinema?

ORG

J. Mekas

Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory

Nitsch

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

This Side of Paradise: Fragments of An Unfinished Biography

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

Shooting Guns

George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus

Up Your Legs Forever

Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas

Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”

Empire

Who Gets to Call It Art?

Going Home

Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit

Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)

Strong Medicine

Lost, Lost, Lost

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

Tapes

Excavating Taylor Mead

Jonas Keeps Shooting Around

My Conversations on Film

Step Across the Border

Viva Jonas!

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

A Mixtape for Stom

Elegy for J.M.

Salvador Dalí at Work

Self Discovery for Social Survival

Meet The Kuchar Brothers

Invocation: Maya Deren

Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman

Nico Icon

Self-Portrait

Beyond the Bolex

My Mars Bar Movie

Últimas correspondencias

I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance

Filmmakers

Filmstudio, mon amour

Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007

A Letter to Penny Arcade

Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas

Song of Avignon

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

Jonas in the Brig

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Notes for Jerome

Re: Maciunas and Fluxus

Belladonna

Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet

Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas
![Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.tmdb.org%2Ft%2Fp%2Fw342%2F5yEUYxLQWc71aL7OGrhSnpslsQO.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas

Underground New York

Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97

Vertigo

Back from New York

Laboratorium Anthology

Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo

Anger Me

Makeshift (for Mekas)

I Had Nowhere to Go

My Birthday

Jonas Mekas Anthology

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

The Song of Avila

Visionaries

Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank

Requiem for a Manual Typewriter

Reminiscences from Germany

A Matter of Baobab

Postcard from America

All About Bolex

Notes for a Déjà vu

The Song of Central Park

Travel Songs

Jonas Mekas in Budapest

Axiom of Choice

New York Conversations

Jonas' Independence Speech at the Anniversary of the Filmmaker's Cooperative

Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days

Poem Posters

A Report from Venice

Michael Snow Up Close

Taping for As I was Moving Ahead…

Journey to Lithuania

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

The Invisible Father

Question a Day

On the Holy Spirit

Sunday December 30, 2007

Galaxie

EXPRMNTL

Graffiti Museum Bronx, NYC

Letter to John from Jonas

The Love Merchant

Kreutzer Sonata

Four Shadows

The Signing

Lavender

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party

Cinema and Sanctuary

Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old

End of the Millennium Espresso

Award




