Jonas Mekas

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.

Known For: Directing

Born: Semeniškiai, Lithuania, 1922-12-24

Died: 2019-01-23

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1961	The Sin of Jesus		48
2	1966	Galaxie	Self	0
3	1970	Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo		0
4	1978	Notes for Jerome	Self	0
5	1980	J. Mekas	Self	0
6	1981	Strong Medicine		56
7	1984	Persistence of Vision	Self	0
8	1985	Home Movies 1971-81		0
9	1989	Belladonna		0
10	1991	Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas	Himself	0
11	1992	Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)		58
12	1996	Michael Snow Up Close	Himself	60
13	1997	A Poet from the Lower East Side	Self	0
14	1998	My Country is Cinema	Self	0
15	2000	As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty	Narrator (voice)	76
16	2002	Jonas Keeps Shooting Around	Himself	50
17	2006	Anger Me	Himself	88
18	2009	The Signing		0
19	2010	Lavender	Self	0
20	2011	Guest	Self	60
21	2012	Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man	Jonas Mekas	65
22	2014	River of Fundament	Wake Guest	62
23	2014	My Birthday		60
24	2015	All About Bolex		0
25	2015	A Report from Venice		0
26	2019	Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1	Self	0
27	2019	Cinema and Sanctuary	Self	0
28	2021	The Velvet Underground	Self	69
29	2021	Back from New York	Himself	0
30	2022	Notes for a Déjà vu		0
31	2022	Vertigo		0
32	2022	Film: The Living Record of Our Memory	Self	86
33	2022	Fragments of Paradise	Self (archive footage)	65
34	2022	Jonas Mekas Anthology	Jonas Mekas	0
35	2022	Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages		0
36	2023	Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV	Self (archive footage)	69
37		The Lamb	Self	0
38		Viva Jonas!	Himself	0
39	1962	Diane the Zebra Woman		90
40	1965	Empire	Self (uncredited)	42
41	1965	Award Presentation to Andy Warhol	Self	70
42	1965	Jonas in the Brig	Himself	0
43	1965	Dirt		80
44	1965	Andy Warhol Screen Tests	Self	80
45	1966	The Love Merchant	Lounge Patron	49
46	1966	Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas	himself	0
47	1967	Poem Posters	Self	0
48	1967	The Song of Avila	Narrator	64
49	1968	Jonas	Himself	0
50	1968	Underground New York	Self	0
51	1969	Filmmakers	Himself	0
52	1970	A Matter of Baobab		0
53	1971	Journey to Lithuania	Himself	0
54	1972	Going Home	Himself	54
55	1972	Imagine	Self	70
56	1974	‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen		79
57	1975	Postcard from America		50
58	1976	Lost, Lost, Lost	Self	70
59	1978	Four Shadows		70
60	1978	Cinématon	N°1590	43
61	1979	Paradise Not Yet Lost	Himself	0
62	1979	ORG	Self (archive footage)	53
63	1980	Self-Portrait	Himself	0
64	1980	No. 18: Mahagonny	Self	55
65	1981	The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man		60
66	1986	Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank	Self	0
67	1986	He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life	Self (archive footage)	82
68	1986	Invocation: Maya Deren	Himself	50
69	1989	Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties	Self	0
70	1990	Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol	Self	73
71	1990	Step Across the Border	Butterfly Wing	79
72	1991	Quartet Number One		75
73	1991	Just Visiting This Planet		0
74	1992	Award	Himself	0
75	1993	Jonas Mekas in Budapest	Himself	0
76	1994	Jonas in the Desert	Self	55
77	1995	Nico Icon	Himself	75
78	1996	Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old	Himself	0
79	1996	Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania	Self	69
80	1996	Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October	Himself	0
81	1997	Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit	Self	52
82	1998	Song of Avignon	Self	76
83	1999	Laboratorium Anthology	Himself	0
84	1999	Letter to John from Jonas		0
85	2000	Requiem for a Manual Typewriter	Himself	0
86	2001	TO NEW YORK WITH LOVE - A Letter to Penny Arcade June 25, 2001		60
87	2002	Notes in Lifestyle Margins		0
88	2002	In the Mirror of Maya Deren	Himself	74
89	2003	Axiom of Choice	Self	0
90	2003	Not in Our Name	himself	0
91	2004	A Letter from Greenpoint	Mekas	0
92	2005	Excavating Taylor Mead	Self	0
93	2005	Vies et morts d'Andy Warhol		0
94	2005	The Definition of Insanity		100
95	2006	Meet The Kuchar Brothers		0
96	2006	Who Gets to Call It Art?	Self	67
97	2006	Notes on Marie Menken	Self	54
98	2006	Salvador Dalí at Work	Self	50
99	2006	The Song of Central Park	Himself (voice)	0
100	2007	Tuesday Jan. 9, 2007	Self	0
101	2007	Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis	Self	66
102	2007	Sunday December 30, 2007	Self	0
103	2007	365 Day Project	Self	100
104	2008	Question a Day		0
105	2008	Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory		35
106	2008	Notes on an American Film Director at Work	Self	56
107	2008	Doc	Himself	0
108	2009	The Perfect Team: The Making of 'On the Bowery'	Self	0
109	2009	It Came from Kuchar	Self (archive footage)	70
110	2009	Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days	Himself	65
111	2010	Visionaries	Himself	60
112	2010	New York Conversations		0
113	2010	Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas	himself	0
114	2011	Re: Maciunas and Fluxus		0
115	2011	Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin	Himself	70
116	2011	Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film	Himself	67
117	2011	3.11 A Sense of Home Films	Himself (voice) (segment "Mt. Ventoux")	65
118	2011	My Mars Bar Movie	himself	0
119	2012	Reminiscences from Germany	Himself	0
120	2012	Maya Deren, Take Zero	Himself	50
121	2013	What Is Cinema?	Self	64
122	2013	My Conversations on Film	Himself	32
123	2013	Diaries, Notes, and Sketches	Self	75
124	2013	Diaries, Notes, and Sketches	self	75
125	2015	A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol	Self	50
126	2016	Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas	Self	0
127	2016	I Had Nowhere to Go	Himself	0
128	2016	EXPRMNTL	himself	0
129	2016	On the Holy Spirit		0
130	2017	I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance	Self	80
131	2018	Nitsch		0
132	2018	George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus	Self	70
133	2018	Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground		0
134	2018	Beyond the Bolex	Self	70
135	2019	3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)		0
136	2019	Jonas Towards Broadway		0
137	2019	Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas		0
138	2019	Makeshift (for Mekas)		60
139	2019	Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film	Self	72
140	2019	Self Discovery for Social Survival	Narrator (voice)	54
141	2019	Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party		0
142	2019	Elegy for J.M.		0
143	2020	Tiny Tim: King for a Day	Himself	61
144	2020	Tapes		0
145		Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas		0
146	2021	The Invisible Father	Self (archive footage)	0

Jonas Mekas

Film

Television