Jonas Mekas

Directing · 1.0 popularity

Age

103

Movies

165

Born: December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019
From: Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Website: Visit site

Biography

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.

Works

165 films

A Poet from the Lower East Side

199710.0

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

19907.3

No. 18: Mahagonny

19806.0

Empire

19654.3

The Velvet Underground

20216.8

My Conversations on Film

20133.2

Imagine

19727.1

Guest

20116.0

J. Mekas

1980

Jonas Keeps Shooting Around

20025.0

Viva Jonas!

2026

Strong Medicine

19816.3

Nitsch

2018

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

20007.7

Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas

2016

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

20236.8

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

20116.5

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

20085.6

9/11: Life Under Attack

20217.5

George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus

20187.0

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

19687.2

The Sin of Jesus

19615.6

Jonas in the Desert

19946.4

Shooting Guns

1966

Going Home

19725.8

Self Discovery for Social Survival

20195.4

Filmstudio, mon amour

201510.0

Doc

2008

Tapes

2020

Just Visiting This Planet

19915.0

Up Your Legs Forever

19718.0

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

1973

Filmmakers

1969

River of Fundament

20145.9

Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1

2019

Jonas Towards Broadway

2019

ORG

19795.1

Belladonna

19898.0

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

20227.8

Notes for a Déjà vu

2022

The Invisible Father

2021

Song of Avignon

19987.4

365 Day Project

200710.0

Diane the Zebra Woman

19629.0

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

19926.2

Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas

2010

Anger Me

20068.8

Jonas in the Brig

1965

Cinématon

19784.9

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

19658.0

3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)

2019

Back from New York

2021

The Love Merchant

19664.9

Persistence of Vision

1984

Visionaries

20106.0

The Lamb

2026

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

2002

Self-Portrait

19809.0

All About Bolex

2015

Reminiscences from Germany

2012

Vertigo

2022

Re: Maciunas and Fluxus

2011

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

2018

What Is Cinema?

20136.5

A Mixtape for Stom

2025

Journey to Lithuania

19717.0

Invocation: Maya Deren

19866.3

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

20155.0

Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October

1996

Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas

2019

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

20206.1

Últimas correspondencias

2016

Requiem for a Manual Typewriter

2000

Imperfect Film

2006

Who Gets to Call It Art?

20066.9

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

20076.6

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

19747.8

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

19868.4

Nico Icon

19957.9

Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas

1966

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

20082.9

Question a Day

2008

Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97

1998

Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007

2007

It Came from Kuchar

20097.2

Poem Posters

1967

My Country is Cinema

1998

Fragments of Paradise

20226.5

Postcard from America

19755.0

Elegy for J.M.

2019

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

20116.8

Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas

2026

Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master

2006

Jonas in the Jungle

2013

Underground New York

1968

Jonas

1968

The Song of Avila

19676.4

A Matter of Baobab

1968

I Had Nowhere to Go

2016

The Definition of Insanity

20059.5

My Birthday

20146.0

Axiom of Choice

2003

Jonas Mekas in Budapest

1993

Taping for As I was Moving Ahead…

2006

Salvador Dalí at Work

19645.0

Makeshift (for Mekas)

20196.0

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

19727.0

Award Presentation to Andy Warhol

19647.5

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

20027.5

Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol

2005

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

20197.2

Dirt

19657.7

Laboratorium Anthology

1999

Beyond the Bolex

20187.0

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

19898.0

Jonas Mekas Anthology

2022

My Mars Bar Movie

2011

Lost, Lost, Lost

19767.1

Excavating Taylor Mead

20057.0

A Letter to Penny Arcade

20016.0

Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days

20096.5

Step Across the Border

19908.1

Sunday December 30, 2007

2007

A Letter from Greenpoint

2004

EXPRMNTL

2016

A Report from Venice

2015

New York Conversations

2010

Home Movies 1971-81

1985

Letter to John from Jonas

1999

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank

1986

Cinema and Sanctuary

2019

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

20126.5

Notes for Jerome

19787.0

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

2006

Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas

1991

Galaxie

196610.0

The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus

19937.0

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

19816.3

End of the Millennium Espresso

2006

Graffiti Museum Bronx, NYC

2006

Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo

1970

Notes on Marie Menken

20065.4

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

19975.2

Paradise Not Yet Lost

197910.0

Michael Snow Up Close

19966.0

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

20178.0

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

2009

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

20117.0

The Song of Central Park

2006

Quartet Number One

19917.5

Award

19929.0

Kreutzer Sonata

2006

Lavender

2010

Meet The Kuchar Brothers

2006

Four Shadows

19787.0

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party

2019

Maya Deren, Take Zero

20125.0

Not in Our Name

2003

The Signing

2009

Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman

2011

On the Holy Spirit

2016

Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet

2015

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

2022

Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old

1996

Ricky Leacock Visit, April 15, 1971

1971