JONAS MEKAS, THE “GODFATHER” OF THE AVANT-GARDE CINEMA

Jonas Mekas is a filmmaker, poet and artist that was born in 1922 in Lithuania. However, due to the war he left his home, and after having studied philosophy at the University of Mainz, he ended up in New York in 1949. Since then, his career and his work has only increased. A decade later, he began to write his legendary column at the Movie Journal. He was also one of the co-founders of the Film-Makers Cooperartive as well the Anthology Film Archive. And throughout these years, he has collaborated with several renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Salvador Dalí. In terms of this creative work, he has directed dozens of films starting with Guns of the Trees (1962) and finishing with Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012). As an author, he has published a wide range of genres since poetry, diaries and catalogs. His first work to be published was in Lithuanian, Knyga Apie Karalius ir Zmones (1947). However, now he also writes in English, such as his latest work A Dance with Fred Astaire (2017), an autobiography full of anecdotes. If you want to know more about this wonderful artist who keeps creating and surprising the world at the astonishing age of 95, you can visit the Jonas Mekas Cultural Visual Center in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

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