To honor Jonas Mekas’ memory, we present a special program, dedicated to the exceptional artist. Apart from the Jonas Mekas Retrospective: Short Films (1966-2002), it includes an audiovisual performance inspired by Mekas’ film “As I was Moving Ahead I saw brief Glimpses of Beauty” (2000), performed by Julius Zubavičius, and the talk “I Make Home Videos Therefore I Live”.

Artist Denisas Kolomyckis, will give a talk about Jonas Mekas, performances and documentation of processes, friends and practices that have followed through the last ten years of Jonas. Talk will be open for questions and possible discussions about Jonas Mekas‘ films together with the presentation of the current practices of Denisas. Artist will share his experience and stories on life in New York and works that have been highly influenced by Mekas.

More information available here.

Time-Line7# film festival in Brazil will join the celebration of Jonas Mekas’ centennial year with the “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” film.

More information on this event can be found here.

Two simultaneous Jonas Mekas’ film programmes in two main cinematheques of Israel – Tel Aviv Cinemateque and Jerusalem Cinematheque – will be presented for the audience, followed by roundtables and discussions, including local and international interlocutors.

The programmes curated by film critic Dr. Ariel Schweitzer.

Special screenings as a part of the tribute to Jonas Mekas are foreseen at Tel Aviv Cinematheque:

On 7 November, 21:00 before the documentary film “Fragments of Paradise” (by KD Davison) the opening remarks will be introduced by the curator of the tribute Dr. Ariel Schweitzer.

On 11 November, 12:00 before the film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (by J. Mekas), there will be a discussion on the work of Jonas Mekas, including panelists Sivan Beskin (poet and translator), Tom Shoval (filmmaker), Yael Perlov (producer and editor) and Jennifer Abessira (artist and designer of the program’s poster), moderated by film critic and curator Dr. Ariel Schweitzer .

For a full programme of this tribute at Tel Aviv Cinematheque please visit link here.

Jonas Mekas, a man with a camera, recorded everyday life, and then compiled the footage into his films. He was an artist among directors who always went against the grain and whose works were characterized by poetic intimacy. This documentary is a tribute to a fascinating man and avant-garde legend.

“Fragments of Paradise” is a more than skin-deep overview of the late Mekas’ life, one that feels like a final message from him directly. It’s a tribute to art’s power to connect, even with those who are gone.

“Fragments of Paradise” will be screened in the Special Docs programme:

• 8 November, 19:45. In person: KD Davison, Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker.
• 9 November, 13:00. In person: KD Davison.

For more information visit the link here.

Jonas Mekas 100! – the international programme of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Lithuanian-born filmmaker’s birth – comes to Italy with “Images Are Real”, an exhibition and series of events curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, who have accompanied Mekas on a number art projects from Venice to New York, Seoul and Reykjavík.

The exhibition takes a retrospective look at the sixty-year career of Jonas Mekas (Biržai 1922 – New York 2019) within and beyond the history of avant-garde cinema. Presenting a broad selection of works ranging from the 1960s to the late 2010s, the project sets out to explore the Lithuanian filmmaker’s work as a form of resistance to human brutality, a quest for happiness through which to cope with the uncertainty of the present.

The title of the exhibition is a quote from the film “Out-takes From the Life of a Happy Man”, in which the artist’s off-screen voice reflects: “Memory is gone, but the images are here, and the images are real!”.

Curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi.

More information on this event can be found here.

“Jonas Mekas Musical Milieu” – a series of concerts of events, organized by the Lithuanian Museum of Theatre, Music, and Film will take place between the 9th and 12th of November. The series delves into little-explored musicality and musical contexts of the late filmmaker, writer, and one of the most important Lithuanian émigré artists Jonas Mekas.

It was inspired by a text written in 2019 by the curator of the project Edvardas Šumila, published in the Lithuanian Music Link journal titled “New York Scenes and Echoes from Lithuania: Jonas Mekas’ Musical Milieu,” overviewing the musicality of Jonas Mekas, and his connections with the New York avant-garde, experimental, and rock music practitioners, and sharing the insights of his friends.

Throughout the four days of events, the visitors will have a chance to experience Jonas Mekas’ sound installation “To Petrarca, Who Walked Over the Hills of Provence” (2003), which has been never exhibited in Lithuania before.

The four concerts in the series will delve into different aspects of Jonas Mekas and his musical milieu and pieces inspired by his creative work.

More information and a full programme can be found here.

This year EX!T 12 presents “My Own Private Mekas” – a retrospective program of the centennial celebration of Jonas Mekas’s life long work. In EX!T 12 we focus on the films of Jonas Mekas that have rarely been known or screened for general audience. Besides the importance of Jonas Mekas as a diary filmmaker and the godfather of avant-garde cinema, our 9 selected films represent and highlight a different part of Meka’s filmmaking career and his overall oeuvre, which connect and emphasize his relationships with experimental film, contemporary art, home movie, and Hollywood. The program we present this year is a private landscape of Jonas Mekas and his own private Lithuania, or his own private Ithaca.

Films to be screened: “Reminiscences from Germany” (2012); “Notes on an American Film Director at Work” (2005); “Notes on an American Film Director at Work: Martin Scorsese” (2005); “Letters to Friends…From Nowhere #1”; “A Walk” (1990); “Quartet number one” (1991); “Reminiszenzen Aus Deutschland” (2013); “Autobiography of a Man” (2000); A Few Notes on the Factory (1999); ‎In Between (1978); “The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained” (1992).

Curator: Yung-Hao Liu
Co-curator: Ming-Yu Lee

Watch the trailer of the programme here.

A complete list of screenings and the programme is available here.

Jonas Mekas, godfather of avant-garde cinema, emigrated to New York in 1949 and over the next 70 years drove the rise of the independent film scene. Filmmaker KD Davison allows Mekas (who died in 2019) to tell much of his own story, as he creates his celebrated diary films and searches for those elusive “fragments of paradise” that cinema can uniquely provide. Mekas championed exhibition and pioneered distribution and preservation institutions. Along the way, he inspired countless artists, among them Martin Scorsese, Andy Warhol, John Lennon and Jim Jarmusch. – Jaie Laplante

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A session with KD Davison, Oona Mekas, and Hollis Melton.

For more information on this premiere in New York please visit link here.

Two simultaneous Jonas Mekas’ film programmes in two main cinematheques of Israel – Tel Aviv Cinemateque and Jerusalem Cinematheque – will be presented for the audience, followed by roundtables and discussions, including local and international interlocutors.

The programmes curated by film critic Dr. Ariel Schweitzer.

For more information on this tribute please visit link here.

A legendary figure of the American avant-garde, Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) was at the heart of the Sixties underground film scene as a critic, curator, and filmmaker. Displaced from their native Lithuania as refugees in postwar New York, Mekas and his brother Adolfas soon joined the city’s independent film community, founding Film Culture, Anthology Film Archives, and writing for the Village Voice. They advocated for a New American Cinema, forming The Film-Makers’ Cooperative with figures like Lionel Rogosin and Shirley Clarke, and later focused on abstract works by experimental filmmakers like Stan Brakhage and Gregory Markopoulos.

Film by Jonas Mekas “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974)  will be screened on 18 November at 19:30. With the participation of Linda Chiu-han Lai at M+ Cinema movie theater.

The film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974) will also be screened on 24 December at 18:15 at the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre.

Film by Jonas Mekas “Lost Lost Lost” (1976)  will be screened on 9 December at 19:00. With the participation of Mimi Wong at M+ Cinema movie theater.

The film “Lost Lost Lost” (1976)  will also be screened on 24 December at 14:30 at the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre.

More information on this event can be found here.

Trieste Contemporanea is pleased to present the second edition of Lithuanian Videospritz. The project, curated by Daniele Capra, consists of two consecutive weekends in which screenings and conversations will alternate.

On Friday 18 and Sunday 20 November from 16.00 to 20.00, we will be able to enjoy the screening of  documentary film “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty”, a long experimental film in which in 2000 Mekas condenses the path of a lifetime of moving images in an uninterrupted flow.

On Saturday 19 November at 18.30, Giulia Simi will talk with the curator Daniele Capra about the corpus of works by the Lithuanian artist starting from Jonas Mekas: cinema e vita (Jonas Mekas: cinema and life).

On Friday 25 November at 18.30, the three artists (Patricija Gilytė, Eglė Grėbliauskaitė and Vitalij Strigunkov) will talk with curator Daniele Capra about their practice, describing the ways they conduct their investigation, the random interactions between life and work, but also the political implications of their analysis.

On Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 November from 16.00 to 20.00, the venue will host a screening of selected video works by the three artists.

For more information visit the link here.

In occasion of the centenary celebrations for Jonas Mekas’ (1922 – 2019) birth, Through Jonas Mekas: From Morra Greco Collection to Contemporary Lithuanian Artists, curated by Alessandra Troncone, is a tribute to the Lithuanian-born poet, artist and filmmaker whose starting point is the two works in the Morra Greco Collection: Elvis&Wein&Mozart (2001) and Lonesome Day (2003).

The project divides into two moments: on Tuesday, November 22 at 6 pm, a talk will take place at the Fondazione Morra Greco that will focus on Mekas, his relationship with Naples and his influence on the latest generation of artists and filmmakers. Moderated by Alessandra Troncone, the event will feature Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, curators of the exhibition Jonas Mekas. Images are Real at the Macro Mattatoio, Rome; Simona Žemaitytė, artist and filmmaker; and Giuseppe Zevola, artist, and will be accompanied by the screening of two films by Mekas from the Morra Greco Collection.

Starting instead on Thursday, November 24, and for the duration of Art Days – Napoli Campania (November 24-27), the third floor of the Foundation will host a screening featuring a selection of films and videos by Lithuanian artists born between the 1980s and 1990s. The programme will screen films by the following Lithuanian artists: Rimas Sakalauskas, Emilija Škarnulytė, Denisas Kolomyckis, Kipras Dubauskas, Ulijona Odišarija, Simona Žemaitytė.

For more information visit the link here.

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania and Lithuanian Culture Institute invites to the presentation of the Russian edition of Jonas Mekas book “Letters from Nowhere”. The book, published by “Baltrus” publisher, was translated by Alexandra Vasilkova and supported by Lithuanian Culture Institute. The event will be attended by Motiejus Čepaitis, a representative of “Baltrus” publisher, Maria Godovannaya, a former student of Jonas Mekas, the photographer Arūnas Kulikauskas, and the film critic Aleksey Artomonov. The participants will share their impressions and memories of their acquaintance with Jonas Mekas.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the famous lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas, Kino im Sprengel will screen experimental films and documentaries from and about Jonas Mekas. 

We will show his long experimental documentary “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” (2000). In a previous screening we shown three short documentaries made by other lithuanian filmmakers about journeys of Jonas Mekas in his native country (in 1976 and 1980), completed by a short documentary of Jonas Mekas himself about his compatriot and Fluxus-artist George Maciunas, “Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)” (1992). This film is shown in 16mm.

Film by Jonas Mekas “Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (Fluxus)” will be screened on 25 November at 20:30.

Film by Jonas Mekas “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” will be screened on 26 November at 18:30.

For more information visit the link here.

In celebration of the centenary of his birth, the Independent Cinema Office, Lithuanian Cultural Institute and curator Herb Shellenberger present the Jonas Mekas 100! UK Cinema Tour, a series bringing together several of Jonas Mekas’s most-celebrated films alongside lesser-seen works.

Screenings:

“Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania”, 1974

“The 365 Days Project: February 21”, 2007

“Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man”, 2013

“Jonas Mekas Shorts Films & Videos 1966-2017”

“As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty”, 2000

“The New American Cinema and After”, 1963-2010

More information click here.

An afternoon of screenings, readings and discussion to mark the centenary of the hugely influential Lithuanian filmmaker, poet, curator, archivist, diarist and cross-cultural documentarian.

This afternoon will celebrate his friendly, creative and informal ways of being in art and the world, showing Mekas’ own short films and his 1997 documentary Letters from Nowhere alongside readings and reflection from Lithuanian poet Rimas Uzgiris and London’s own Stephen Watts.

Programme

On the 100th anniversary of the famous lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas, Tokyo University will screen his film works. We will show his long experimental film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1972), “Paradise Not Yet Lost, or Oona’s Third Year”(1974), and a short documentary of Jonas Mekas himself about his compatriot and Fluxus-artist George Maciunas, “Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas” (1992). All films are shown in 16mm. Also, a critic, Norio Nishijima will give a lecture on Jonas Mekas.

More information available here.

A talk between Julius Ziz, a close friend of Jonas Mekas and compiler of the recently published three-volume edition of the Jonas Mekas’ writings, and Yūki Nagae, Japanese poet and performer. Organized as a part of the program of “100 Years of European Literature. Europe then and now“ festival, under the session  „Luminaries of European Literature“, the event will focus on shedding light on Mekas’ poetry, diaries and other writings, and reflect upon Mekas‘ life story, marked by the destiny of a forced emigree from his native Lithuania.

Illustrated with soundtracks and video footage of Jonas Mekas, reading own poetry, this event will seek to engage and encourage the audience to explore his unique literary legacy, that is not yet widely discovered in Japan.

In English and Japanese with simultaneous translation. To register for live and online viewing here.

For more information, check here.

Gwangju Museum of Art is pleased to present “To All My Dear Friends”, an exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas’ birth. The exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ important films that have been created throughout his life as Mekas was a master of American avant-garde cinema and established a new horizon in the history of experimental film through the format of ‘diary film.’ The exhibition begins with the idea that the stories that many of his films present are indeed his letters with wishful greetings he wanted to deliver to his friends.

The exhibition also illuminates his friendship with Nam June Paik, whom he worked with for some time as an immigrant and exile in New York. Nam June Paik’s Sistine Chapel where images of Fluxus artists at the same time working with Jonas Mekas are projected is on display.

More information on this exhibition can be found here.

Public screenings of the one of the most famous Jonas Mekas films “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974) in Bethlehem and Ramallah on the 1st and 3rd of December aimed to commemorate the centenary of Jonas Mekas. The events are being organised in cooperation with the Palestinian partners – the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem and the Tibaq Publishing House in Ramallah.

The film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” will be screened on 1 December at 19:00 at the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.

The film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” will be screened on 3 December at 17:00 at Tibaq Cultural Center in Ramallah.

On December 2nd, as part of our theme of the month “In der Schwebe” [In limbo] we will screen Jonas Mekas’ film “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” in our small cinema in Bielefeld.

Perhaps Jonas Mekas’s cinematic magnum opus, “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” is the filmmaker’s nearly five-hour film which he describes as “a masterpiece of nothing”. Through the film’s twelve chapters, the artist describes his obsession with nothing—or what’s considered nothing, in cinema, in life. An associative, poetic construction of footage shot between 1970 and 1999, the film finds beauty in the disorder of everyday life.

More information available here.

The National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) in Helsinki celebrates the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas with a programme of four feature films, a short film programme, a photo exhibition as well as a panel discussion and introductions. The programme kicks off on the first weekend of December and runs until mid-January in the cinematheque of KAVI, Kino Regina.

The Jonas Mekas programme starts on 2 December with a screening of Mekas’ short films and film diary entries.  3rd December begins with a conversation about Jonas Mekas’ work and legacy. The participants include two international guests: Kristijonas Gukauskas, a London-based Lithuanian art historian and independent curator, and Arunas Kulikauskas who has worked closely with Jonas Mekas for 22 years at the Anthology Film Archives. Photos by A. Kulikauskas are exhibited in the lobby of Kino Regina during the film programme in December and January. He will be also introducing the screening of the feature film Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972) following the panel discussion and the short film programme on 4 December.

The other films in the programme include Walden (1969), Lost Lost Lost (1976) and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000), all screened from 16 mm film.

For a complete programme at Kino Regina visit link here.

In celebration of the centenary of Jonas Mekas birth, the Independent Cinema Office, Lithuanian Cultural Institute and curator Herb Shellenberger present the “Jonas Mekas 100!” UK Cinema Tour, a series bringing together several of Jonas Mekas’s most-celebrated films alongside lesser-seen works.

Films to be screened: “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania”; “The 365 Days Project: February 21”; “Wien & Mozart”; “BreathDeath”; “Harmonica”; “The Vision Machine”; “Imperceptihole”: “Notes on the Circus”; “Imperfect Three-Image Films”; “Travel Songs”; “A Letter to Penny Arcade”; “My Birthday”; “I Don’t Know Which Tree it Comes from that Fragrance”; “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty”; “Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man”; “Self-Portrait”.

More information click here.

“I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot.” – Jonas Mekas

More information on this event available here.

In December, the Gene Siskel Film Center joins cinemas and museums across the world in celebration of the life and work of Jonas Mekas (1922 – 2019), one of the most influential voices in cinema, and considered by many to be the “godfather of avant-garde cinema.” The Lithuanian-born filmmaker seemingly always had a camera in his hand. Though his oeuvre spanned seven decades and includes dozens of titles, the eight programs in our Mekas 100 presentation exemplify the heart of what Mekas distinctively captured so often: daily life. Through his lens, Mekas observed the seemingly mundane routines we all keep, and found poetry.

More information available here.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas birth, Theatre Image Forum is organizing a screening of the film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974).

“Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” chronicles the return journey to Jonas Mekas homeland with his brother Adolfas, after several decades in the United States. Reuniting with siblings, neighbours and their mother, the film pulls the viewer through village life in rural Soviet Lithuania, bookended by scenes from New York in the 1950s and a stop in Vienna on their return journey to the US. Combining music, poetry and reflections, with short fragmentary bursts of filming, Mekas’ films are alive with memory.

More information available here.

“Accidental Poems” is an interdisciplinary music festival, focusing on the artistic heritage of the director and poet Jonas Mekas. Mekas’ movie diaries are considered cornerstones in the history of avant-garde cinema, an artistic practice that made him a key figure in the experimental art scene of New York since the 60s. Though he was not a musician, sound and music played an important role in his movies and within the cultural milieu created around him. “Accidental Poems” is not trying to represent Mekas’ musical work, as such, but to create a happening through the use of his own archival materials, and musical works that relate to him in a direct or imagined way.

The Festival dates are 7-9.12, including three events:

• Archival Encounters – Chamber concert | Wednesday 7.12, 20:00 at Rubin Museum. A program of musical compositions that were inspired by Jonas Mekas or by using his poems, selected from the archives of the two music centers.
• Temporary Soundtracks – Cross-disciplinary Musical event | Thursday 8.12, 18:00-23:00 at Liebling House. An evening of original audio-visual performances & installations created especially for this evening in response to archival footage of Jonas Mekas.
• Artmachines: Thinking with Jonas Mekas’ Practice – Symposium & Workshop | Friday 9.12, 10:00-14:00 at Liebling House.

Please visit this link for more information (in Hebrew) on this programme.

Porretta film festival pays homage to Jonas Mekas’ 100th anniversary. On December 8, “Guns of the trees” will be screened that it was presented in Porretta Terme in 1962, as a preview, at the second International Exhibition of Free Cinema. The film won the Golden Naiad which was the first recognition received by Jonas Mekas. Following, on December 8, it will be screened the documentary “Fragments of paradise” by KD Davison, winner of 2022 at the Venice Film Festival.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Lithuania-born, naturalised American filmmaker, poet and artist Jonas Mekas, Cineteca Milano, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Italy and Lithuanian Film Culture, presents a masterclass dedicated to Mekas and the screening of the film “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” at Cinema Arlecchino.

Jonas Mekas is among the most important figures of the landscape of American independent and experimental cinema. “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” is the highest and most complete expression of his artistic and cinematographic thought. Putting together apparently trivial fragments of everyday life, Mekas composes a cine-diary that miraculously transforms itself into a hymn to the complexity, beauty and poetry of life: a unique and unforgettable cinematic experience that reminds us that paradise is here and now.

More information available here.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas birth, BULAC is organizing a screening of the film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania”. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Michaël Batalla, director of the Centre international de poésie Marseille (CipM), who coordinates the “Translating Mekas” programme, a seminar on the collective translation of Jonas Mekas’s poems, and Cécile Tourneur, a doctor of aesthetics, science and technology of the cinema and audiovisual sector, and author of a thesis on the qualification of the voice in Jonas Mekas’s films.

More information on this event can be found here.

In the framework of Jonas Mekas 100! the Cinema of the DFF in Frankfurt will present 16mm-screening dedicated to the director “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1972).

“Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” chronicles the return journey to Jonas Mekas homeland with his brother Adolfas, after several decades in the United States. Reuniting with siblings, neighbours and their mother, the film pulls the viewer through village life in rural Soviet Lithuania, bookended by scenes from New York in the 1950s and a stop in Vienna on their return journey to the US. Combining music, poetry and reflections, with short fragmentary bursts of filming, Mekas’ films are alive with memory.

More information available here.

A legendary figure of the American avant-garde, Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) was at the heart of the Sixties underground film scene as a critic, curator, and filmmaker. Displaced from their native Lithuania as refugees in postwar New York, Mekas and his brother Adolfas soon joined the city’s independent film community, founding Film Culture, Anthology Film Archives, and writing for the Village Voice. They advocated for a New American Cinema, forming The Film-Makers’ Cooperative with figures like Lionel Rogosin and Shirley Clarke, and later focused on abstract works by experimental filmmakers like Stan Brakhage and Gregory Markopoulos.

Film by Jonas Mekas “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974)  will be screened on 18 November at 19:30. With the participation of Linda Chiu-han Lai at M+ Cinema movie theater.

The film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1974) will also be screened on 24 December at 18:15 at the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre.

Film by Jonas Mekas “Lost Lost Lost” (1976)  will be screened on 9 December at 19:00. With the participation of Mimi Wong at M+ Cinema movie theater.

The film “Lost Lost Lost” (1976)  will also be screened on 24 December at 14:30 at the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre.

More information on this event can be found here.

Jonas Mekas 100! – the international programme of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Lithuanian-born filmmaker’s birth – comes to Italy with “Images Are Real”, an exhibition and series of events curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, who have accompanied Mekas on a number art projects from Venice to New York, Seoul and Reykjavík.

The exhibition takes a retrospective look at the sixty-year career of Jonas Mekas (Biržai 1922 – New York 2019) within and beyond the history of avant-garde cinema. Presenting a broad selection of works ranging from the 1960s to the late 2010s, the project sets out to explore the Lithuanian filmmaker’s work as a form of resistance to human brutality, a quest for happiness through which to cope with the uncertainty of the present.

The title of the exhibition is a quote from the film “Out-takes From the Life of a Happy Man”, in which the artist’s off-screen voice reflects: “Memory is gone, but the images are here, and the images are real!”.

Curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi.

More information on this event can be found here.

Perhaps Jonas Mekas’s cinematic magnum opus, “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” is the filmmaker’s nearly five-hour film which he describes as “a masterpiece of nothing”. Through the film’s twelve chapters, the artist describes his obsession with nothing—or what’s considered nothing, in cinema, in life. An associative, poetic construction of footage shot between 1970 and 1999, the film finds beauty in the disorder of everyday life.

More information on this event available here.

In the framework of Jonas Mekas 100! the Cinema of the DFF in Frankfurt will present 16mm-screening dedicated to the director: Peter Sempel’s portrait film “Jonas in the Desert” (1994).

More information available here.

Gwangju Museum of Art is pleased to present “To All My Dear Friends”, an exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas’ birth. The exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ important films that have been created throughout his life as Mekas was a master of American avant-garde cinema and established a new horizon in the history of experimental film through the format of ‘diary film.’ The exhibition begins with the idea that the stories that many of his films present are indeed his letters with wishful greetings he wanted to deliver to his friends.

The exhibition also illuminates his friendship with Nam June Paik, whom he worked with for some time as an immigrant and exile in New York. Nam June Paik’s Sistine Chapel where images of Fluxus artists at the same time working with Jonas Mekas are projected is on display.

More information on this exhibition can be found here.