
Directing
Born December 24, 1922 · Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Jonas Mekas (12-24-1922 - 1-23-2019) 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.

Tapes
2020

Requiem
2019
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

On the Holy Spirit
2016

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

Últimas correspondencias
2016

A Report from Venice
2015

Scenes from the Life of Raimund Abraham
2015

My Bolexes
2015

All About Bolex
2015

My Birthday
2014

Destruction of the Berlin Wall
2014

Halloween 1990
2014

I Leave Chelsea Hotel
2013

The Sixties Quartet
2013

Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man
2012
Happy Easter Ride
2012

20 Little Films
2012

Reminiscences from Germany
2012
Mt. Ventoux
2011

My Paris Movie
2011

Sleepless Nights Stories
2011

My Mars Bar Movie
2011

3.11 A Sense of Home Films
2011

Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
2011
First Class Flight
2011

A Mixtape for Stom
2025

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

The Invisible Father
2021

Tapes
2020

Tiny Tim: King for a Day
2020

Elegy for J.M.
2019

Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party
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

I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance
2017