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.
Filmography
all 237
Movies 237
Director 111
self 79
Writer 3
Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV (2023)
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages (2022)
Jonas Mekas Anthology (2022)
Fragments of Paradise (2022)
Film, the Living Record of Our Memory (2022)
Vertigo (2022)
Notes for a Déjà vu (2022)
Back from New York (2021)
The Velvet Underground (2021)
Tapes (2020)
Tiny Tim: King for a Day (2020)
Elegy for J.M. (2019)
Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party (2019)
Requiem (2019)
Cinema and Sanctuary (2019)
Self Discovery for Social Survival (2019)
Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film (2019)
Makeshift (for Mekas) (2019)
Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1 (2019)
Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas (2019)
Jonas Towards Broadway (2019)
3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert) (2019)
Beyond the Bolex (2018)
Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground (2018)
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus (2018)
Nitsch (2018)
From the Notebooks of a Cinema Maniac (2017)
I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance (2017)
From the diaries of a cinema maniac (2017)
I Had Nowhere to Go (2016)
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas (2016)
Yoko Ono Lennon's Courage Awards 2016: Laurie Anderson, Mohammad el Gharani, Eileen Boxer, RoseLee Goldberg, LoftOpera (2016)
A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol (2015)
A Report from Venice (2015)
Scenes from the Life of Raimund Abraham (2015)
My Bolexes (2015)
All About Bolex (2015)
My Birthday (2014)
River of Fundament (2014)
Halloween 1990 (2014)
My Conversations on Film (2013)
What Is Cinema? (2013)
The Sixties Quartet (2013)
Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012)
Happy Easter Ride (2012)
20 Little Films (2012)
Maya Deren, Take Zero (2012)
Reminiscences from Germany (2012)
My Paris Movie (2011)
Mt. Ventoux (2011)
Sleepless Nights Stories (2011)
3.11 A Sense of Home (2011)
My Mars Bar Movie (2011)
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (2011)
Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin (2011)
First Class Flight (2011)
Keep Singing (2011)
Re: Maciunas and Fluxus (2011)
Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas (2010)
Orchard Street (2010)
New York Conversations (2010)
42 One Dream Rush (2010)
Lavender (2010)
WTC Haikus (2010)
Visionaries (2010)
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2009)
It Came from Kuchar (2009)
Lithuania and the Collapse of the USSR (2009)
I Leave Chelsea Hotel (2009)
The Signing (2009)
Notes on an American Film Director at Work (2008)
Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory (2008)
Question a Day (2008)
365 Day Project (2007)
Day Nine (2007)
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007)
365 Day Project March 16 (2007)
Thursday Jan. 4, 2007: Pedro (São Paulo) or The Right Way To Make Capirinha (2007)
The Song of Central Park (2006)
Salvador Dalí at Work (2006)
Dalí Oster Newsreel (2006)
A Visit to Timothy Leary (2006)
John & Yoko Bed-In (2006)
A Visit to Stan Brakhage (2006)
Dedication to Matsuo Basho (2006)
Monks of Cinema (2006)
To Barbara Rubin with Love (2006)
Anger Me (2006)
The Destruction Quartet (2006)
Notes on Marie Menken (2006)
Who Gets to Call It Art? (2006)
Meet The Kuchar Brothers (2006)
Scenes from the Life of Hermann Nitsch (2005)
The Definition of Insanity (2005)
Excavating Taylor Mead (2005)
Notes on Utopia (2005)
A Letter from Greenpoint (2004)
A Visit To Hans Richter (2003)
Not in Our Name (2003)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2003)
Axiom of Choice (2003)
Mysteries (2002)
Jonas Keeps Shooting Around (2002)
In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2002)
American Magus (2002)
Three Friends (2002)
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten (2001)
TO NEW YORK WITH LOVE - A Letter to Penny Arcade June 25, 2001 (2001)
Elvis (2001)
Wien & Mozart (2001)
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
Requiem for a Manual Typewriter (2000)
Notes on Jonas Mekas (2000)
Silence, Please (2000)
Autobiography of a Man Who Carried his Memory in his Eyes (2000)
A Few Notes on Andy's Factory (1999)
This Side of Paradise: Fragments of An Unfinished Biography (1999)
Letter to John from Jonas (1999)
Laboratorium Anthology (1999)
Patti Smith at Anthology Film Archives Febr. 19, 1998 (1998)
Song of Avignon (1998)
My Country is Cinema (1998)
Nam June Paik's Piano Piece (1997)
Letters from Nowhere (1997)
Happy Birthday to John (1997)
Birth of a Nation (1997)
Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (1997)
A Poet from the Lower East Side (1997)
Song of The Salamander (1996)
Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October (1996)
Celebrate Cinema 101 (1996)
Michael Snow Up Close (1996)
Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old (1996)
On My Way to Fujiyama I met.. (1995)
Imperfect Three-Image Films (1995)
Nico Icon (1995)
Memories of Frankenstein (1995)
Jonas in the Desert (1994)
Peter Kubelka at the Library of Congress (1993)
Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus) (1992)
The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained (1992)
Award (1992)
Just Visiting This Planet (1991)
Carl G. Jung by Jerome Hill or Lapis Philosophorum (1991)
Quartet Number One (1991)
Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas (1991)
A Walk (1990)
Step Across the Border (1990)
Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990)
Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships & Intersections (1990)
Mob of Angels: Baptism (1990)
Belladonna (1989)
Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties (1989)
Invocation: Maya Deren (1986)
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1986)
Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank (1986)
Home Movies 1971-81 (1985)
Persistence of Vision (1984)
Street Songs (1983)
Cup/Saucer/Two Dancers/Radio (1983)
Erick Hawkins: Excerpts from "Here and Now with Watchers" (1983)
The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man (1981)
Travel Songs (1981)
The Song of Stockholm (1981)
Strong Medicine (1981)
No. 18: Mahagonny (1980)
Self-Portrait (1980)
Robert Haller's Wedding (1980)
J. Mekas (1980)
ORG (1979)
Paradise Not Yet Lost (1979)
Cinématon (1978)
Notes for Jerome (1978)
In Between (1978)
Andy at Work (1976)
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
Postcard from America (1975)
‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen (1974)
Imagine (1972)
Going Home (1972)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972)
Warhol and Maciunas (1971)
Up Your Legs Forever (1971)
Journey to Lithuania (1971)
The Song of Moscow (1970)
A Matter of Baobab (1970)
Occhio privato sul nuovo mondo (1970)
Brakhage Crosses Central Park (1969)
Filmmakers (1969)
Time & Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1969)
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches (1968)
Underground New York (1968)
Jonas (1968)
The Song of Avila (1967)
The Song of Italy (1967)
The Song of Assisi (1967)
The Italian Notebook (1967)
Notes on the Circus (1967)
Poem Posters (1967)
Hare Krishna (1967)
For Life, Against the War (1967)
The First 40: Bibi Hansen (1966)
Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas (1966)
Report from Millbrook (1966)
European Diaries (1966)
Galaxie (1966)
Velvet Underground's First Public Appearance (1966)
The Velvet Underground: Psychiatrist's Convention, NYC, 1966 (1966)
Cassis (1966)
A Visit to Stan Brakhage (1966)
The Love Merchant (1966)
Andy Warhol Screen Tests (1965)
Dirt (1965)
Jonas in the Brig (1965)
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1965)
Film Magazine of the Arts (1965)
Empire (1965)
Salvador Dali, Happenings (1964)
The Brig (1964)
Hallelujah the Hills (1963)
Diane the Zebra Woman (1962)
Senseless (1962)
Guns of the Trees (1961)
Robert Frank Films (1960)
Poets at the Living Theater (1958)
Doc
The Invisible Father
Carl Dreyer
The Lamb
Marcel Hanoun wedding
Bed-In: John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Viva Jonas!
Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas
Destruction of the Berlin Wall
A Daydream
Monday Jan. 1, 2007
Cinematheque Française
Ratings
Gallery
Information
Known ForDirecting
GenderMale
Birthday1922-12-24
Deathday2019-01-23 (96 years old)
Birth PlaceBiržai, Lithuania
ChildrenOona Mekas, Sebastian Mekas
FatherPaulius
MotherElžbieta
SiblingsAdolfas Mekas
CitizenshipsLithuania, United States of America
Also Known As요나스 메카스, 乔纳斯·梅卡斯
AwardsDoctor Honoris Causa at the Vytautas Magnus University, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Honorary citizen of Biržai District Municipality, Order for Merits to Lithuania, Guggenheim Fellowship, Lithuanian National Prize, Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
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