Jonas Mekas
Birthday: 1922-12-24
Place of Birth: Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Biography: 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.
Movies
Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1
"Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas / Version 1": this is the last filmed interview of Jonas Mekas. ...
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The Velvet Underground
Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directe...
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Film: The Living Record of Our Memory
Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the ...
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Notes for a Déjà vu
The immediately recognisable voice and sweet wistful words of the late legend of the avantgarde, Jon...
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Cinema and Sanctuary
The astonishing story of the first documentary film school in the USA—The Institute of Film Techniqu...
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Strong Medicine
Adaptation of an avant-garde play about Rhoda, a hysterical heroine who feels oppressed by the peopl...
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Persistence of Vision
A short documentary profile of the Anthology Film Archives, shot on the eve of the move to the histo...
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All About Bolex
"I developed a need to try to retain everything I was passing through, by means of my Bolex camera."...
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A Report from Venice
Opening of the Internet Saga Pavilion. At Palazzo Foscari Contarini, Venice. May 6 and 7, 2015....
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Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who...
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Back from New York
Two artists, whose work was constrained during the Soviet era, fled to New York. There, they met wit...
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Michael Snow Up Close
MICHAEL SNOW UP CLOSE was produced on the occasion of The Michael Snow Project, a major, career-span...
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Anger Me
Elio Gelmini interviews Avantgarde filmmaker Kenneth Anger. With archive footage of Angers films, he...
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Lavender
A wholesome moment: Jonas Mekas, MM Serra, Ken Jacobs, and Flo Jacobs take lavender from a stranger'...
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Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)
The life and work of Fluxus artist George Maciunas as seen in clips filmed between 1952 and 1978....
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As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde...
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Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
An autobiographical diary film assembled from unused footage shot between 1960 and 2000, interwoven ...
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A Poet from the Lower East Side
Filmmaker Gyula Gazdag's fascinating documentary follows Hungarian poet, playwright and activist Ist...
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Belladonna
An experimental short by Beth B. It consists of rapidly intercut close-ups of talking heads reading ...
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Jonas Keeps Shooting Around
A short portrait of Jonas Mekas on the occasion of his 2002 retrospective in Paris (for his 80th bir...
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River of Fundament
Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of No...
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Vertigo
Gozo Yoshimasu, a pioneer of Japanese contemporary poetry, pursued the vision of his ally, the late ...
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Galaxie
In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his...
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Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas recites poems of his, both in English and Lithuanian. Exclusive Mekas interview by the p...
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Jonas Mekas Anthology
A portrait movie of the Godfather of American avantgarde cinema. Through material filmed primarily i...
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Fragments of Paradise
For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, docu...
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Notes for Jerome
During the summer of 1966 Jonas Mekas spent two months in Cassis, as a guest of Jerome Hill. Mekas v...
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Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
This very special film features a carefully curated selection of some of the priceless messages that...
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J. Mekas
In 1977, Robertas Verba followed Jonas Mekas in Lithuania, his second trip there after he left the c...
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Guest
Filmmaker José Luis Guerin documents his experience during a year of traveling as a guest of film fe...
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Doc
The amazing adventures of forgotten American novelist and Paris Review founder, Harold Louis "Doc" H...
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Just Visiting This Planet
Peter Sempel's masterful poetic film tribute to butoh performer Kazuo Ohno....
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Jonas
A verité portrait of Jonas Mekas making his daily rounds, JONAS shows us the underground impresario ...
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Maya Deren, Take Zero
This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew h...
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The Perfect Team: The Making of 'On the Bowery'
Filmmaker Michael Rogosin's fascinating exploration of the production history behind his father Lion...
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Four Shadows
Four four-minute image sections and four four-minute sound sections are linked in all combinations o...
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Diane the Zebra Woman
Diane the Zebra Woman follows four women’s misadventures through the streets of New York City in 196...
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I Had Nowhere to Go
I Had Nowhere To Go is based on Jonas Mekas’s diary. It’s been over 70 years since he left his villa...
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In the Mirror of Maya Deren
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movemen...
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Reminiscences from Germany
A narrative presented non-chronologically of Jonas Mekas's time in German forced labour camps and di...
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The Song of Avila
Filmed during Jonas Mekas’s visit to Avila in 1967, this short records his impressions of the city, ...
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He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surro...
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Step Across the Border
An avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith....
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Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit
This is a video record of the Buddhist Wake ceremony at Allen Ginsberg's apartment. You see Allen, n...
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The Definition of Insanity
Co-director Robert Margolis stars as Robert, an actor who may or may not be himself in this intense ...
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I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance
In his latest film, Mekas shares what he describes as “a valentine to Yoko Ono,” done in his signatu...
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The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man
“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans ...
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The Love Merchant
Biker Click procures lovely willing young women for decadent millionaire playboy Kendall Harvey III....
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Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
Jonas Mekas weaves an elegiac diary film from his 1971–72 return to Lithuania, chronicling a visit t...
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Going Home
A home movie by Adolfas Mekas and wife Pola Chapelle on their travels to Lithuania and Europe. It wa...
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Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Sm...
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Salvador Dalí at Work
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting stage...
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No. 18: Mahagonny
Harry Smith’s final film; an epic four-screen projection. Smith worked on this cinematic transformat...
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Jonas in the Brig
A newsreel of Jonas Mekas shooting his filmed version of The Brig on the set of the Living Theatre p...
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Underground New York
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbul...
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ORG
Explores the complex relationship between the spirit, body, and mind. The film is a nightmare with c...
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Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007
The film documents an encounter at 202 Blvd Saint-Germain, in a cafe underneath Apollinaire's last p...
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My Conversations on Film
This distinctly personal journey into the artistic possibilities of independent film is not to be mi...
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Meet The Kuchar Brothers
Provides a rare glimpse into the world of George and Mike Kuchar, underground filmmaking brothers fr...
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Jonas in the Desert
Not a documentary in the strictest sense of the word. Rather, it is a journey through the world of t...
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Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the ve...
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‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen
Various unrelated vignettes, often juxtaposing sound and image....
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Filmmakers
Iimura creates a short self-portrait as well as brief portraits of five of his peers: Brakhage, Vand...
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Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old
The real history of the cinema is the invisible history – history of friends getting together doing ...
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Journey to Lithuania
During the trip back to Lithuania, Jonas Mekas made Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, Adolfas...
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Laboratorium Anthology
Scenes from the life and work at Anthology Film Archives. Much of the footage in this video was shot...
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Invocation: Maya Deren
Maya Deren is a legend of avant-garde cinema. This authoritative biography of the charismatic filmma...
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It Came from Kuchar
It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaki...
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Visionaries
Documentary on Jonas Mekas and the American avant-garde cinema, with several new interviews and appe...
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Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
In 1964 Film Culture magazine chose Andy Warhol for its annual Independent Film award. The plan was ...
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New York Conversations
New York Conversations is a documentary made of varied conversations revolving around cinema in New ...
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George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
In 1961 Lithuanian American artist and impresario George Maciunas established the avant-garde art mo...
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Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties
Documentary on Andy Warhol's cinema of the sixties, made for Channel 4 in association with The Facto...
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What Is Cinema?
Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Ro...
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Question a Day
In 2008, Andrew Lampert, employed as the film archivist of Anthology Film Archives, endeavored to as...
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Letter to John from Jonas
Jonas Mekas' video letter to John Hanhardt, in which he declines an offer for Anthology to be taken ...
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Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas
A short film portrait of legendary filmmaker Jonas Mekas, talking about the Buddha and the meaning o...
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Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas
A film tribute to the inspirational Jonas Mekas....
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Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
The 29-minute experimental film Christmas on Earth caused a sensation when it first screened in New ...
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Poem Posters
... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, ...
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Excavating Taylor Mead
The film icon/Andy Warhol darling is interviewed is his legendary cluttered apartment....
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A Letter from Greenpoint
In February 2004, after 30 years of my life in SoHo, I made a decision to leave SoHo and move to Gr...
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Makeshift (for Mekas)
Jem Cohen's memory-tribute to Jonas Mekas displaces its first-person narration from voice-over to on...
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A Matter of Baobab
International Cast of Actors: Jonas Mekas, from Lithuania, poet and film-maker; Louis Brigante, from...
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TO NEW YORK WITH LOVE - A Letter to Penny Arcade June 25, 2001
I made this video June 23, 2001, as a letter for my good friend Penny Arcade who some days earlier h...
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Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film
An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with ...
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Self Discovery for Social Survival
Self Discovery for Social Survival is a collaborative surf and music film produced by Brooklyn based...
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A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol
Stephen Smith sets out to discover the real Andy Warhol - in the hour-by-hour detail of his daily li...
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Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
Using his trademark flicker method, Ken Jacobs pays homage to the oldest type of color film, Kodachr...
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Award
A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubila...
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Andy Warhol Screen Tests
The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were...
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Nico Icon
A look into the many lives of Christa Päffgen, otherwise known as Nico; from cutie German mädchen to...
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Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
Iconic American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol is the subject of this documentary, which looks at ...
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Who Gets to Call It Art?
Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler reflects on the 1960s pop art scene in New York....
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My Mars Bar Movie
For some twenty years Mars Bar, on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue, Manhattan, has bee...
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Imagine
A surreal, half-fiction, half real life footage of a day in the life of John lennon and Yoko Ono, co...
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Cinématon
Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest...
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Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory
Takes an in-depth look at the lives and times of the people who hung out with Andy Warhol and "worke...
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Paradise Not Yet Lost
The film is arranged in six chronologically-ordered parts, each filmed in a different location durin...
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Beyond the Bolex
Filmmaker Alyssa Bolsey stumbles on a treasure trove of vintage cameras, old film reels, fading phot...
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365 Day Project
This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calenda...
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Empire
Filmed by Jonas Mekas from the 44th floor of the Time-Life Building, “Empire” explores the passage o...
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Lost, Lost, Lost
Drawn from footage shot between 1949 and 1963, Jonas Mekas’s autobiographical diary film chronicles ...
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Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s Ne...
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Re: Maciunas and Fluxus
“Drawing on his personal archives, Mekas has assembled a Fluxus vaudeville starring Yoko Ono, Joseph...
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Song of Avignon
Jonas Mekas reflects on a 1966 trip to Avignon that offered solace during a period of personal crisi...
View Movie![Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/5yEUYxLQWc71aL7OGrhSnpslsQO.jpg)
Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October
Jonas, Birgit and Anja are leaving for the Brooklyn Bridge. By taxi, buying beer, drinking in the st...
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Notes on an American Film Director at Work
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows his friend, film director Martin Scorsese, and his cast and crew, thro...
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The Song of Central Park
During the course of a single winter’s day, January 16, 1966, Jonas Mekas captured impressionistic g...
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Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
A series of video letters between José Luis Guerín and Jonas Mekas....
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Tapes
The tapes in the program consist of some of Mekas’ earliest cassettes from the 1990s not long after ...
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Postcard from America
After the author’s period of experimentation, these American notes are extremely straightforward. As...
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3.11 A Sense of Home Films
In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short ...
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3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)
A short portrait of Jonas Mekas by filmmaker and veteran Jonas chronicler Peter Sempel....
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Jonas Towards Broadway
Short portrait of Jonas Mekas by filmmaker and veteran Jonas chronicler, Peter Sempel....
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Axiom of Choice
Evoking the physiognomy of a Rembrandt portrait, Axiom of Choice depicts Jonas Mekas and his son Seb...
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Elegy for J.M.
Created by Anthology’s Archivist John Klacsmann, the visual track of Elegy for J.M. is the result of...
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Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jackie Raynal, originally air...
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Tiny Tim: King for a Day
The story of Tiny Tim’s improbable rise to stardom is the ultimate fairytale - and so is that of his...
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Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank
Presents an intimate view of four decades of the Swiss-born artist Robert Frank who has had an extra...
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EXPRMNTL
Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Ca...
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The Sin of Jesus
An egg-sorting woman shrugs off even the appearance of Christ. From Isaak Babel story....
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The Invisible Father
In the 1960s, beat poet and experimental filmmaker Piero Heliczer helped shape New American Cinema, ...
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Sunday December 30, 2007
I close the 365 Day Project and announce the 1001 Nights Project ---HASTA LA VISTA! ---...
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Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s Ne...
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Notes in Lifestyle Margins
The film tells about the famous Lithuanian director Vytautas Žalakevičius. The film contains many ex...
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Jonas Mekas in Budapest
Experimental movie about Jonas Mekas spending time in Budapest....
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Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol
Icon of pop art, Andy Warhol has marked the 20th century. This film pays tribute to him with the exc...
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Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master
Friends and colleagues (including Yoko Ono and Merce Cunningham) of Nam June Paik share their though...
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Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet
This documentary cracks open the meticulously constructed façade of Andy Warhol, exposing the comple...
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The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus
The film portrays a group of artists who since the early 1960s have completely disrupted our ideas o...
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Ricky Leacock Visit, April 15, 1971
Jonas Mekas visit. Harry comes by before Ricky visit. 1. 12 p.m. April 15th -- Jonas dares to come ...
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Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97
Jonas Mekas came to Paris in October 1997 for the video release of his film Walden. I filmed the eve...
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A Mixtape for Stom
"A Mixtape for Stom" is an intimate documentary portrait of Japanese experimental filmmaker Stom Sog...
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Shooting Guns
Shot in 1960 on the set of Jonas Mekas' 'Guns of the Trees'. Dedicated to Ron Rice....
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