Jonas Mekas

Directing

Born Dec 24, 1922

From Semeniškiai, Lithuania

Died Jan 23, 2019

Jonas Mekas (12-24-1922 - 1-23-2019) 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.

Jonas Mekas

Known For

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

Cinématon

The Velvet Underground

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

River of Fundament

What Is Cinema?

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

It Came from Kuchar

Filmography — Acting

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

Cinématon

The Velvet Underground

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

River of Fundament

What Is Cinema?

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

It Came from Kuchar

365 Day Project

ORG

Jonas in the Desert

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

Doc

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

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

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

Imagine

Lost, Lost, Lost

Nico Icon

The Sin of Jesus

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

Invocation: Maya Deren

Fragments of Paradise

Underground New York

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

Strong Medicine

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

Vertigo

Empire

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

Filmmakers

Galaxie

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

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

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

Excavating Taylor Mead

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

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

Meet The Kuchar Brothers

EXPRMNTL

Dirt

The Invisible Father

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

Poem Posters

A Letter from Greenpoint

Song of Avignon

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

No. 18: Mahagonny

The Definition of Insanity

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank

Anger Me

The Perfect Team: The Making of 'On the Bowery'

Maya Deren, Take Zero

Guest

Award Presentation to Andy Warhol

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages

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

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

Salvador Dalí at Work

Notes for Jerome

Diane the Zebra Woman

My Conversations on Film