Jonas Mekas

Directing

Born December 24, 1922 in Semeniškiai, Lithuania

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.

Filmography

Viva Jonas!

Himself

A Mixtape for Stom

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

Self (archive footage)

Jonas Mekas Anthology

Jonas Mekas

Fragments of Paradise

Self (archive footage)

Film: The Living Record of Our Memory

Self

Vertigo

Notes for a Déjà vu

Back from New York

Himself

The Velvet Underground

Self

9/11: Life Under Attack

Self

The Invisible Father

Self (archive footage)

Tapes

Tiny Tim: King for a Day

Himself

Elegy for J.M.

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party

Requiem

Cinema and Sanctuary

Self

Self Discovery for Social Survival

Narrator (voice)

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

Self

Makeshift (for Mekas)

Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas

Beyond the Bolex

Self

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus

Self

Nitsch

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

Self

From the diaries of a cinema maniac

On the Holy Spirit

EXPRMNTL

himself

I Had Nowhere to Go

Himself

Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas

Self

Yoko Ono Lennon's Courage Awards 2016: Laurie Anderson, Mohammad el Gharani, Eileen Boxer, RoseLee Goldberg, LoftOpera

Últimas correspondencias

Self

Filmstudio, mon amour

Sé stesso

A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol

Self

Behind the Artist: Andy Warhol, an American Prophet

A Report from Venice

Scenes from the Life of Raimund Abraham

All About Bolex

My Bolexes

My Birthday

Destruction of the Berlin Wall

River of Fundament

Wake Guest

Halloween 1990

My Conversations on Film

Himself

What Is Cinema?

Self

I Leave Chelsea Hotel

The Sixties Quartet

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

Jonas Mekas

20 Little Films

Reminiscences from Germany

Self

My Paris Movie

Sleepless Nights Stories

My Mars Bar Movie

himself

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

Himself (voice) (segment "Mt. Ventoux")

Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film

Himself

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin

Himself

Guest

Self

Re: Maciunas and Fluxus

Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman

Keep Singing

New York Conversations

42 One Dream Rush

Lavender

Self

WTC Haikus

Visionaries

Himself

Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days

Himself

It Came from Kuchar

Self (archive footage)

The Signing

Doc

Himself

Question a Day

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

Notes on an American Film Director at Work

Self

365 Day Project

Self

Sunday December 30, 2007

Self

Friday May 4, 2007: John Zorn – Cobra Part Two

Monday April 16, 2007

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

Self

Friday March 16, 2007

Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007

Self

Thursday Jan. 4, 2007: Pedro (São Paulo) or The Right Way To Make Capirinha

Monday Jan. 1, 2007

The Song of Central Park

Himself (voice)

Moires with Prof. Oster and Salvador Dalí

A Visit to Stan Brakhage

Velvet Underground's First Public Appearance

To Barbara Rubin with Love

Bibi Hansen

Carl Dreyer

Warhol and Maciunas

Poets at the Living Theater

Andy at Work

Robert Frank Films

Cinémathèque Française

Brakhage Crosses Central Park

Monks of Cinema

To John With Love

John & Yoko Bed-In

Anger Me

Himself

The Destruction Quartet

Who Gets to Call It Art?

Self

Meet The Kuchar Brothers

The Definition of Insanity

Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol

Excavating Taylor Mead

Self

Notes on Utopia

Kulturplatz

Self

Axiom of Choice

Self

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Jonas Keeps Shooting Around

Himself

In the Mirror of Maya Deren

Himself

Notes in Lifestyle Margins

Three Friends

Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten

A Letter to Penny Arcade

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

Narrator (voice)

Silence, Please

Autobiography of a Man Who Carried his Memory in his Eyes

Mozart & Elvis

A Few Notes on Andy's Factory

This Side of Paradise: Fragments of An Unfinished Biography

Patti Smith at Anthology Film Archives Febr. 19, 1998

Jonas Mekas in Paris 10/97

Song of Avignon

Self

Nam June Paik's Piano Piece

Letters from Nowhere

Happy Birthday to John

Birth of a Nation

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

Self

A Poet from the Lower East Side

Self

Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October

Himself

Michael Snow Up Close

Himself

Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old

Himself

Celebrate Cinema 101

On My Way to Fujiyama I met..

Nico Icon

Self

Imperfect Three-Image Films

Memories of Frankenstein

Jonas in the Desert

Self

Jonas Mekas in Budapest

Himself

The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained

Award

Himself

Carl G. Jung by Jerome Hill or Lapis Philosophorum

Quartet Number One

A Walk

Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol

Self

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships & Intersections

Step Across the Border

Butterfly Wing

Belladonna

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

Self

Invocation: Maya Deren

Himself

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

Self (archive footage)

Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank

Self

Home Movies 1971-81

Persistence of Vision

Self

Strong Medicine

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

Travel Songs

The Song of Stockholm

Self-Portrait

Himself

J. Mekas

Self

Robert Haller's Wedding

ORG

Self (archive footage)

Cinématon

N°1590

Four Shadows

Notes for Jerome

Self

In Between

Lost, Lost, Lost

Self

Postcard from America

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

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

Imagine

Self

Going Home

Himself

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Self

Journey to Lithuania

Himself

The Song of Moscow

Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo

Filmmakers

Himself

Time & Fortune Vietnam Newsreel

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

Self

A Matter of Baobab

Underground New York

Self

The Song of Avila

Narrator

The Song of Italy

The Song of Assisi

Notes on the Circus

Poem Posters

Self

Hare Krishna

For Life, Against the War

Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas

himself

Report from Millbrook

European Diaries

Galaxie

Self

The Velvet Underground: Psychiatrist's Convention, NYC, 1966

Shooting Guns

Cassis

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

Self

Jonas in the Brig

Himself

Film Magazine of the Arts

Empire

Self (uncredited)

The Brig

Salvador Dalí at Work

Self

Hallelujah the Hills

Senseless

Guns of the Trees