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Jonas Mekas
Sign in to saveLithuanian filmmaker (1922–2019)
Film & TV
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,…
Known for
- A Mixtape for Stom2025
- Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV — Self (archive footage)2023
- Film: The Living Record of Our Memory — Self2022
- Notes for a Déjà vu2022
- Vertigo2022
- Jonas Mekas Anthology — Jonas Mekas2022
- Fragments of Paradise — Self (archive footage)2022
- Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages2022
- The Velvet Underground — Self2021
- Back from New York — Himself2021
via TMDB
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1922-12-24 ) December 24, 1922, Semeniškiai , Lithuania
- Died
- January 23, 2019 (2019-01-23) (aged 96), New York City, U.S.
- Alma mater
- University of Mainz
- Occupations
- Poet filmmaker artist
- Years active
- 1954–2019
- Movement
- Avant-garde cinema
- Spouse
- Hollis Melton ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1974 )
- Awards
- Lithuanian National Prize (1995)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Lithuania
- Place of death
- Brooklyn
- Sibling
- Adolfas Mekas
- Occupation
- opinion journalist
- Educated at
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
- Languages spoken
- German
- Participant in
- documenta 14
- Field of work
- literature
- Official website
- jonasmekas.com/diary
- Image
- Jonas Mekas.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- Commons category
- Jonas Mekas
- date of birth
- 1922-12-24
- name in native language
- Jonas Mekas
- has works in the collection
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- date of death
- 2019-01-23
Sources (10)
via Wikidata · CC0
~26 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Jonas Mekas (/ˈmiːkɑːs/; Lithuanian: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas's work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide. Mekas was active in New York City, where he co-founded Anthology Film Archives, The Film-Makers' Cooperative, and the journal Film Culture. He was also the first film critic for The Village Voice.
In the 1960s, Mekas launched anti-censorship campaigns in defense of the LGBTQ-themed films of Jean Genet and Jack Smith, garnering support from cultural figures including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Norman Mailer, and Susan Sontag. Mekas mentored and supported many prominent artists and filmmakers, including Ken Jacobs, Peter Bogdanovich, Chantal Akerman, Richard Foreman, John Waters, Barbara Rubin, Yoko Ono, and Martin Scorsese. He helped launch the writing careers of the critics Andrew Sarris, Amy Taubin, and J. Hoberman.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jonas Mekas” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.