Jonas Mekas

Directing · 0.9 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

Strong Medicine

19816.3

No. 18: Mahagonny

19806.0

My Conversations on Film

20133.2

The Velvet Underground

20216.8

Guest

20116.0

Jonas Keeps Shooting Around

20025.0

Imagine

19727.1

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

20116.5

George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus

20187.0

Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas

2016

Empire

19654.3

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

19907.3

ORG

19795.1

Tapes

2020

The Sin of Jesus

19615.6

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

20236.8

9/11: Life Under Attack

20217.5

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

20007.7

Doc

2008

Nitsch

2018

Filmstudio, mon amour

201510.0

Just Visiting This Planet

19915.0

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

19687.2

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

20085.6

J. Mekas

1980

River of Fundament

20145.9

Going Home

19725.8

Up Your Legs Forever

19718.0

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

20227.8

Song of Avignon

19987.4

Cinématon

19784.9

Viva Jonas!

2026

Self Discovery for Social Survival

20195.4

Belladonna

19898.0

Diane the Zebra Woman

19629.0

Notes for a Déjà vu

2022

Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1

2019

Vertigo

2022

Filmmakers

1969

Shooting Guns

1966

365 Day Project

200710.0

Jonas Towards Broadway

2019

Reminiscences from Germany

2012

It Came from Kuchar

20097.2

Invocation: Maya Deren

19866.3

The Invisible Father

2021

What Is Cinema?

20136.5

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

20206.1

Anger Me

20068.8

Re: Maciunas and Fluxus

2011

Fragments of Paradise

20226.5

Últimas correspondencias

2016

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

2002

3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)

2019

Nam June Paik: Lessons from the Video Master

2006

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

19658.0

Back from New York

2021

Persistence of Vision

1984

Journey to Lithuania

19717.0

Jonas in the Desert

19946.4

Question a Day

2008

Requiem for a Manual Typewriter

2000

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

1973

Visionaries

20106.0

Jonas in the Brig

1965

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

19868.4

Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas

2010

The Definition of Insanity

20059.5

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

19926.2

Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas

1966

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

19747.8

Jonas Mekas Anthology

2022

Excavating Taylor Mead

20057.0

Underground New York

1968

Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas

2019

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

20155.0

Home Movies 1971-81

1985

Lost, Lost, Lost

19767.1

Who Gets to Call It Art?

20066.9

All About Bolex

2015

Nico Icon

19957.9

Elegy for J.M.

2019

Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007

2007

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

20076.6

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

20116.8

The Song of Avila

19676.4

Notes for Jerome

19787.0

Postcard from America

19755.0

Salvador Dalí at Work

19645.0

Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas

2026

A Letter from Greenpoint

2004

A Mixtape for Stom

2025

A Matter of Baobab

1968

I Had Nowhere to Go

2016

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank

1986

The Lamb

2026

Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October

1996

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

2018

Jonas

1968

Jonas Mekas in Budapest

1993

Step Across the Border

19908.1

Beyond the Bolex

20187.0

Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol

2005

Self-Portrait

19809.0

Imperfect Film

2006

The Love Merchant

19664.9

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

19727.0

Cinema and Sanctuary

2019

Laboratorium Anthology

1999

Sunday December 30, 2007

2007

Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days

20096.5

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

20027.5

Jonas in the Jungle

2013

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

20197.2

The Misfits - 30 Years of Fluxus

19937.0

New York Conversations

2010

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

19898.0

Paradise Not Yet Lost

197910.0

Michael Snow Up Close

19966.0

My Country is Cinema

1998

Notes on Marie Menken

20065.4

Letter to John from Jonas

1999

A Letter to Penny Arcade

20016.0

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

20126.5

Dirt

19657.7

A Report from Venice

2015

Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo

1970

Makeshift (for Mekas)

20196.0

Quartet Number One

19917.5

Axiom of Choice

2003

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

19816.3

Poem Posters

1967

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

19975.2

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

20082.9

Galaxie

196610.0

Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97

1998

EXPRMNTL

2016

My Mars Bar Movie

2011

My Birthday

20146.0

Meet The Kuchar Brothers

2006

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

20178.0

End of the Millennium Espresso

2006

Graffiti Museum Bronx, NYC

2006

Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas

1991

Kreutzer Sonata

2006

Taping for As I was Moving Ahead…

2006

Award Presentation to Andy Warhol

19647.5

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

20117.0

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

2006

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

2009

Not in Our Name

2003

Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman

2011

Award

19929.0

Lavender

2010

Four Shadows

19787.0

Maya Deren, Take Zero

20125.0

Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet

2015

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

2022

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party

2019

The Signing

2009

On the Holy Spirit

2016

Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old

1996

The Song of Central Park

2006

Ricky Leacock Visit, April 15, 1971

1971