
Jonas Mekas
Birthday: 1922-12-24Died: 2019-01-23
Birthplace: Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Home Page: http://jonasmekas.com
Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 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.
Filmography
My Country is Cinema
Character: SelfLast Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1
Character: SelfThe Velvet Underground
Character: SelfFilm: The Living Record of Our Memory
Character: SelfCinema and Sanctuary
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Persistence of Vision
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Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
Character: Self (archive footage)Back from New York
Character: HimselfMichael Snow Up Close
Character: HimselfAnger Me
Character: HimselfLavender
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As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Character: Narrator (voice)Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
Character: Jonas MekasA Poet from the Lower East Side
Character: SelfJonas Keeps Shooting Around
Character: HimselfRiver of Fundament
Character: Wake GuestGalaxie
Character: SelfInterview and Reading: Jonas Mekas
Character: HimselfJonas Mekas Anthology
Character: Jonas MekasFragments of Paradise
Character: Self (archive footage)Notes for Jerome
Character: SelfThe Lamb
Character: SelfJ. Mekas
Character: SelfGuest
Character: SelfViva Jonas!
Character: HimselfDoc
Character: HimselfJonas
Character: HimselfMaya Deren, Take Zero
Character: HimselfThe Perfect Team: The Making of 'On the Bowery'
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I Had Nowhere to Go
Character: HimselfIn the Mirror of Maya Deren
Character: HimselfReminiscences from Germany
Character: HimselfThe Song of Avila
Character: NarratorHe Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Character: Self (archive footage)Step Across the Border
Character: Butterfly WingScenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit
Character: SelfI Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance
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The Love Merchant
Character: Lounge PatronGoing Home
Character: HimselfNotes on Marie Menken
Character: SelfReminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
Character: SelfJack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Character: SelfSalvador Dalí at Work
Character: SelfNo. 18: Mahagonny
Character: SelfJonas in the Brig
Character: HimselfUnderground New York
Character: SelfORG
Character: Self (archive footage)Self-Portrait
Character: HimselfTuesday Jan. 9, 2007
Character: SelfMy Conversations on Film
Character: HimselfJonas in the Desert
Character: SelfFree Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Character: HimselfFilmmakers
Character: HimselfCinema Is Not 100 Years Old
Character: HimselfJourney to Lithuania
Character: HimselfLaboratorium Anthology
Character: HimselfInvocation: Maya Deren
Character: HimselfIt Came from Kuchar
Character: Self (archive footage)Visionaries
Character: HimselfAward Presentation to Andy Warhol
Character: SelfGeorge: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
Character: SelfWarhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties
Character: SelfWhat Is Cinema?
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Requiem for a Manual Typewriter
Character: HimselfPortrait Serie - Jonas Mekas
Character: himselfPoem Posters
Character: SelfExcavating Taylor Mead
Character: SelfA Letter from Greenpoint
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Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film
Character: SelfSelf Discovery for Social Survival
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A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol
Character: SelfJonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
Character: HimselfAward
Character: HimselfAndy Warhol Screen Tests
Character: SelfNico Icon
Character: HimselfSuperstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Character: SelfWho Gets to Call It Art?
Character: SelfMy Mars Bar Movie
Character: himselfImagine
Character: SelfCinématon
Character: N°1590$rowCount++; } // end for loop // crew // $rowCount=0; for($x=0;$x
Paradise Not Yet Lost
Character: HimselfBeyond the Bolex
Character: Self365 Day Project
Character: SelfEmpire
Character: Self (uncredited)Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Character: SelfLost, Lost, Lost
Character: SelfSong of Avignon
Character: SelfJonas Mekas, Friday 13th October
Character: HimselfScreen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas
Character: himselfNot in Our Name
Character: himselfNotes on an American Film Director at Work
Character: SelfThe Song of Central Park
Character: Himself (voice)Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
Character: Himself3.11 A Sense of Home
Character: Himself (voice) (segment "Mt. Ventoux")Axiom of Choice
Character: SelfReminiscences of Jonas Mekas
Character: SelfTiny Tim: King for a Day
Character: HimselfFire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank
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