We present a landmark work from the filmmaking pioneer Jonas Mekas.
In his second diary film, Mekas reflects on his life through footage shot across three distinct moments, largely structured around his time in America and Lithuania. In an intensely personal manner, Mekas uses voiceover and text to share memories on his initial arrival in America from Lithuania 1950–1953, filmed on his Bolex camera.
The second section was shot in 1971 in Semeniškiai, the village in Lithuania where Mekas was born. The footage making up these sequences was shot during his first return to his family’s hometown, after a gap of 25 years. The third part of the film is marked by parentheses, showing a camp in Hamburg where the artist was held following the Second World War, before concluding with sequences shot with artists and critic friends, across Austria. A moving reflection on the role of artmaking as a mode of self-care.
Lithuania/US Dir Jonas Mekas 88 min, 16mm
Event run time 100 min
Herb Shellenberger is a film programmer, curator and writer originally from the United States and based in London. He's been a Programmer for Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival since 2016 and is co-editor of the newly-revised edition of Amos Vogel's 1974 book Film as a Subversive Art, published in 2021 by Film Desk Books.
Paulina Pukytė is an artist, writer, curator and cultural commentator originally from Lithuania and based in London. She writes experimental fiction, poetry and plays, as well as critical and satirical essays on cultural issues, and has published four books. In her visual art practice she makes site-specific interventions, moving image, and conceptual projects, exploring perception and memory, deconstructing socio-ideological myths and clichés.
In partnership with the Lithuanian Culture Institute
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