Jonas Mekas
12/24/1922

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.
Jonas Mekas
Appeared In:
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As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
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Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
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Jonas
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I Had Nowhere to Go
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Reminiscences from Germany
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The Song of Avila
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Jonas in the Brig
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Self-Portrait
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Day Nine
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Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old
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Laboratorium Anthology
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Visionaries
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New York Conversations
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Question a Day
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Letter to John from Jonas
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Requiem for a Manual Typewriter
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Portrait Serie - Jonas Mekas
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Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
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Keep singing: a tribute to Jonas Mekas
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A Letter from Greenpoint
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Makeshift (for Mekas)
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A Matter of Baobab
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TO NEW YORK WITH LOVE - A Letter to Penny Arcade June 25, 2001
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Self Discovery for Social Survival
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Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
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Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party
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My Mars Bar Movie
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365 Day Project
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Empire
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Re: Maciunas and Fluxus
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Jonas Mekas, Friday 13th October
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Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas
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Not in Our Name
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Notes on an American Film Director at Work
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The Song of Central Park
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Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
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Tapes
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Elegy for J.M.
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Jonas Towards Broadway
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3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)
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Axiom of Choice
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Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
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Cinématon n°1590 : Jonas Mekas
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Salvador Dali, Happenings
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My Country is Cinema
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Notes for a Déjà vu
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All About Bolex
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A Report from Venice
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My Birthday
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Jonas Keeps Shooting Around
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Jonas Mekas Anthology
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Fragments of Paradise
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Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
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J. Mekas
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Viva Jonas!
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Last Interview Film of Jonas Mekas/version 1
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Back from New York
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Lavender
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Anger Me
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Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)
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A Poet from the Lower East Side
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Step Across the Border
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I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance
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Journey to Lithuania
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George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
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Nitsch
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Paradise Not Yet Lost
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Song of Avignon
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Persistence of Vision
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The Signing
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Vertigo
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Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas
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Notes for Jerome
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Belladonna
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Going Home
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Diane the Zebra Woman
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Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit
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Award
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Beyond the Bolex
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Quartet Number One
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Tiny Tim: King for a Day
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Michael Snow Up Close
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Just Visiting This Planet
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Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
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Salvador Dalí at Work
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No. 18: Mahagonny
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Underground New York
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Meet The Kuchar Brothers
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‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen
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Filmmakers
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Invocation: Maya Deren
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Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
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Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film
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Maya Deren, Take Zero
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A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol
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Lost, Lost, Lost
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Postcard from America
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3.11 A Sense of Home
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The Velvet Underground
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Notes on Marie Menken
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The Definition of Insanity
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Warhol's Cinema 1963-1968: Mirror for the Sixties
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Excavating Taylor Mead
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Galaxie
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Poem Posters
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Nico Icon
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Who Gets to Call It Art?
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Imagine
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Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
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Jonas in the Desert
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Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
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Andy Warhol's Factory People... Inside the Sixties Silver Factory
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Cinema and Sanctuary
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ORG
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What Is Cinema?
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The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man
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In the Mirror of Maya Deren
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The Love Merchant
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Dirt
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My Conversations on Film
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Film, the Living Record of Our Memory
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It Came from Kuchar
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Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank
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Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
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Strong Medicine
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Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol
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He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
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River of Fundament
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Andy Warhol Screen Tests
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Home Movies 1971-81
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Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
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Cinématon