Jonas Mekas: 100 Years of Cinema, Arts, and Politics

Jonas Mekas (1922–2019)—filmmaker, author, and curator—was an influential figure in international avant-garde movements. He fled Lithuania in 1944. After periods in a German labor camp and various displaced persons camps, he emigrated to New York in 1949. He found a new home in the burgeoning subculture and soon became one of the key protagonists of the New American Cinema. Throughout his life, Mekas dealt with themes of displacement, memory and loss, for which he sought artistic expression in his films and texts. The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine has given his work renewed political relevance, which will be explored in various programs, on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

Artistic direction: Christoph Gnädig, Christian Hiller, Anne König

Program

Wednesday, January 18: Memories
4pm
Oral history interview: Jonas Mekas United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, US, 2018
6pm
Opening with the curators Christoph Gnädig, Christian Hiller, Anne König
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, Jonas Mekas, G/US, 1972
8:45pm
Reading: Heike Geißler and Goda Palekaitė, from the diaries of Jonas Mekas and Adolfas Mekas
Talk: “I’m trying to remember” with Christoph Dieckmann, Ina Navazelskis and Claudia Sinnig
Going Home, Adolfas Mekas, Pola Chapelle, US, 1971

Thursday, January 19: Displacement
4pm
Oral history interview: Jonas Mekas United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, US, 2018
7pm
Kalbėti į pačią širdį (To Speak to the very heart) B. Pajėdienė, Lithuania, 1971
Reminiszenzen Aus Deutschland, Jonas Mekas, US, 2012
Reading: Heike Geißler and Goda Palekaitė
Audio play with projections: Föhrenwald, Michaela Melián, Germany, 2005
Talk: “Displaced Persons Camps”: Michaela Melián and Marcus Velke

Friday, January 20: Counterculture
4pm
Destruction Quartet, Jonas Mekas, US, 2006
6pm
Introducing lecture: “Art and Activism,” Andrew Uroksie
Street Songs, Jonas Mekas, US, 1966/1983
The Brig, Jonas Mekas, US, 1964
9pm
Online talk: “Jonas Mekas and the New York Underground” with Amy Taubin
Reading: Heike Geißler and Goda Palekaitė
Jonas, Gideon Bachmann, West Germany, 1968
When Jonas Mekas, US, 1967
For Life Against War (Week Of The Angry Arts) (selections), US, 1967

Saturday, January 21: Cold and New Wars
12pm
Lithuania and the Collapse of the USSR, Jonas Mekas, US, 2009
12:30am
Introduction: Pip Chodorov
Lost Lost Lost, Jonas Mekas, US, 1978
4:15pm
Asia Bazdyrieva reads from her war diary
356 Day Project (selection), Jonas Mekas, US, 2007
Ma, Maria Stoianova, Ukraine, 2017
6:45pm
The Fall of Lenin, Svitlana Shymko, Ukraine, 2017
Reading: Goda Palekaitė and Egle Lukšaite
Talk: “Deconstruction of historical narratives”: Ekaterina Degot, Sergei Loznitsa and Olga Schubert
8:30pm
Introduction: Oleksandr Teliuk (Dovzhenko Centre, Kyiv)
Ritual in Transfigured Time, Maya Deren, US, 1946
356 Day Project (selection), Jonas Mekas, US, 2007
Zemlia (Earth), Oleksandr Dovzhenko, USSR, 1930

Sunday, January 22: Politics of Everyday
12pm
Notes on Utopia, Jonas Mekas, US, 2006
2pm
Notes for Jerome, Jonas Mekas, US, 1978
3:30pm
Talk with Hollis Melton
Paradise Not Yet Lost (aka Oona’s Third Year), Jonas Mekas, US, 1979
6:15pm
Correspondencia Jonas Mekas—J.L. Guerín, José Luis Guerín, Jonas Mekas, Spain/France, 2011
Talk with Sebastian Mekas and José Luis Guerín

Monday, January 23
7pm
Jonas in the Fields, Peter Sempel, Germany, 2021
Talk with Peter Sempel

Wednesday, January 25
6pm
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally, I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, Jonas Mekas, US, 2000

The events will be held in English.

Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Project coordination: ARCH+ e.V., Berlin; in cooperation with Lithuanian Culture Institute, Vilnius; Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Berlin; Jonas Mekas Studio, New York; Dovzhenko Centre, Kyiv; Re:Voir, Paris; and Spector Books, Leipzig.