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Belladonna (1989)
Character: N/A
An experimental short by Beth B. It consists of rapidly intercut close-ups of talking heads reading statements from a Sigmund Freud case history; affidavits attesting to the atrocities of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi war criminal; and journals from the trial of New Yorker Joel Steinberg, accused of killing his adopted daughter.
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Four Shadows (1978)
Character: N/A
Four four-minute image sections and four four-minute sound sections are linked in all combinations of the sound sections with each of the image sections. This established affinities between each of the image sections to the others, and the sound sections to each other. The image sections are: surveyors measuring the land near my house as seen through an old window, a family of Siamang Gibbon apes in the Washington zoo, an industrial site, and a page turned from a book on Cézanne’s composition showing a diagram of his painting Mardi Gras, filmed against bright leaves. The sound sections are: a dramatic scene from Debussy’s opera “Pelléas et Mélisande”, a passage from William Wordworth’s autobiographical poem “The Prelude,” sounds from rowing on a lake at night, and the sounds of the apes vocalizing.
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Filmmakers (1969)
Character: Himself
Iimura creates a short self-portrait as well as brief portraits of five of his peers: Brakhage, Vanderbeek, Smith, Mekas and Warhol. In each portrait, Iimura attempts to copy the styles and traits of each artist (Vanderbeek's constantly moving camera; Mekas' experiments with film speed; Warhol's use of flashes of white against a black background), while briefly commenting on the images being shown. The film serves effectively as an introduction to the film styles of these artists.
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New York Conversations (2010)
Character: N/A
New York Conversations is a documentary made of varied conversations revolving around cinema in New York. These conversations give us the opportunity to sketch some of the bad boys and girls -directors, actors or producers of New York cinema, whether they be famous, anonymous or blossoming talents. Young and impetuous for most, they are watched over by a few veterans. All share this iron will to remain independent, out of choice but above all, out of necessity. The necessity to create at any cost. Shot with a Super8 camera, this documentary groups together 15 short conversations about film making, life, independence, art and...New York.
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Nitsch (2018)
Character: N/A
A short film by Maria Lassnig, shot in 1970.
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Question a Day (2008)
Character: N/A
In 2008, Andrew Lampert, employed as the film archivist of Anthology Film Archives, endeavored to ask Jonas Mekas, its legendary and charismatic founder, one trivial or profound question a day. This is a selection.
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A Matter of Baobab (1970)
Character: N/A
International Cast of Actors: Jonas Mekas, from Lithuania, poet and film-maker; Louis Brigante, from Madagascar, poet and publisher; Storm De Hirsch, from Holland, poetess, seer and film-maker; Pola Chapelle, from Tierra del Fuego, singer and motel operator; Adolfas Mekas, from Lapland, basket weaver and film director; Contessa Angela Maria Andrecci di Castiglione, from Italy, opera singer.
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Award (1992)
Character: Himself
A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.
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Cartoline dall'America (1975)
Character: N/A
After the author’s period of experimentation, these American notes are extremely straightforward. As in Migration, however, this America could be a more remote country, and the inspiration is avowedly Japanese (Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North). Implicitly, the film-maker compares himself to an old peddler of drawings, Sam, hawking his wares at the entrance of Columbia’s Butler Library.
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Elegy for J.M. (2019)
Character: N/A
Created by Anthology’s Archivist John Klacsmann, the visual track of Elegy for J.M. is the result of an encoding malfunction while preparing a clip of Jonas Mekas’s Lost Lost Lost (1976), a happy digital accident in keeping with the spontaneity and openness to chance embodied by Jonas’s diary films themselves.
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Axiom of Choice (2003)
Character: N/A
Evoking the physiognomy of a Rembrandt portrait, Axiom of Choice depicts Jonas Mekas and his son Sebastian, their heads rotating in radiant chiaroscuro against a black ground. With Mekas at its center, the references to cinematic machinery abound in this work: from the proto-filmic zoetrope (which used a spinning cylinder to create the illusion of a moving image), to the flickering zoom of Ernie Gehr’s film Serene Velocity, to the enormous gyrating machine at the center of Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale. —Richard Birkett, Karin Schneider & Nicolás Guagnini
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Notes for a Déjà vu (2022)
Character: N/A
The immediately recognisable voice and sweet wistful words of the late legend of the avantgarde, Jonas Mekas, is heard over the images of an imagined trip to Mexico. He speaks about memory as being testament to suffering, while expired 16mm film shows us an act of remembering, memory as a verb: peaceful protest.
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眩暈 Vertigo (2022)
Character: N/A
Gozo Yoshimasu, a pioneer of Japanese contemporary poetry, pursued the vision of his ally, the late Jonas Mekas in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The time is the end of January 2020, just before the coronavirus strikes NYC, and the trip is just in time. This film depicts the dramatic birth of a poem that could be called a requiem on the first anniversary of the death of Mekas, who was considered a giant of experimental cinema
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Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages (2022)
Character: N/A
This very special film features a carefully curated selection of some of the priceless messages that have graced Anthology’s voicemail system over the years. From the historically important to the utterly (and sublimely) absurd, they feature a cast of characters ranging from legendary avant-garde filmmakers, scholars, and other cultural figures to civilians whose legend has (until now) been confined to the offices of Anthology, thanks precisely to their witty, eloquent, eccentric – or in some cases unforgettably psychotic – voicemails. We’ve toyed with the idea of sharing these messages in some form for years, and the “Imageless Films” series provides a perfect pretext.
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Dirt (1965)
Character: N/A
Two nuns take a bath, then meet a sailor on the Staten Island Ferry.
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The Love Merchant (1966)
Character: Lounge Patron
Biker Click procures lovely willing young women for decadent millionaire playboy Kendall Harvey III. Kendall sets his sights on Peggy Johns as his next conquest, but the married and straight-laced Peggy turns down his proposal. However, after her husband's advertising business finds itself in a financial slump, Kendall offers to help out but only if Peggy agrees to be his intimate companion for two days.
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The Sin of Jesus (1961)
Character: N/A
An egg-sorting woman shrugs off even the appearance of Christ. From Isaak Babel story.
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No. 18: Mahagonny (1980)
Character: N/A
Harry Smith’s final film; an epic four-screen projection. Smith worked on this cinematic transformation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1929) for over ten years and considered it his magnum opus. The film was shot from 1970 to 1972 and edited for the next eight years. The “program” of the film is meticulous, with a complex structure and order. The Weill opera is transformed into a numerological and symbolic system. Images in the film are divided into categories— portraits, animation, symbols and nature— to form the palindrome P.A.S.A.N.A.S.A.P. The film contains invaluable cameos of important avant-garde figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas, intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, New York City landmarks of the era, and Smith’s visionary animation.
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Strong Medicine (1981)
Character: N/A
Adaptation of an avant-garde play about Rhoda, a hysterical heroine who feels oppressed by the people around her. She suffers through her birthday party, goes to see a doctor, plans a vacation, argues a lot and even breaks the fourth wall.
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The Definition of Insanity (2005)
Character: N/A
Co-director Robert Margolis stars as Robert, an actor who may or may not be himself in this intense and often hilarious film about acting, aging and the dark side of ambition. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, The Definition of Insanity was filmed over the course of 18 months, as a documentary crew follows Robert Margolis obsessively from one failed audition to another, recording in raw detail his every humiliation and small triumph as he searches for that elusive perfect role that will catapult his career into the next level. Just when it seems that he will be forced by family and financial pressures to give up everything he has worked for, he meets legendary filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich («The Last Picture Show», «Papermoon»). That encounter changes his life profoundly, but in a very different way than he had anticipated.
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Anger Me (2006)
Character: Himself
Elio Gelmini interviews Avantgarde filmmaker Kenneth Anger. With archive footage of Angers films, he portrays the filmmaker from his childhood until present day.
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Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (2011)
Character: Himself
Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov traces the course of experimental film in America, taking the very personal point of view of someone who grew up as part of the experimental film community.
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Guest (2011)
Character: Self
Filmmaker José Luis Guerin documents his experience during a year of traveling as a guest of film festivals to present his previous film. What emerges is a wonderfully humane and sincere portrayal of the people that he meets when he goes off the beaten track in some of the world's major cities.
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Im Spiegel der Maya Deren (2002)
Character: Himself
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
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Andy Warhol Screen Tests (1965)
Character: Self
The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.
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Nico Icon (1995)
Character: Himself
A look into the many lives of Christa Päffgen, otherwise known as Nico; from cutie German mädchen to the first of the supermodels, to glamorous diva of the Velvet Underground, to cult item, junkie and hag. Many faces for the same woman, whom, you realize, just couldn't bring herself to care enough to live.
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Ginsberg - egy költö a Lower East Side-ról (1997)
Character: Himself
Filmmaker Gyula Gazdag's fascinating documentary follows Hungarian poet, playwright and activist István Eörsi on a trip to the streets of New York to visit his friend and contemporary, the iconic beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Shot just two years before Ginsberg's death, the film follows the two friends as they share poetry and laughs, wandering the streets of the Lower East Manhattan, musing about the past and contemplating the future.
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Mes entretiens filmés (2013)
Character: Himself
This distinctly personal journey into the artistic possibilities of independent film is not to be missed. Jonas Mekas, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Robert Kramer and many other visionaries and mavericks of the silver screen – as well as a book seller, a critic and a psychoanalyst – discuss what cinema has meant to them, what it is and what it could be and, implicitly, how it has changed over the 18 years in which this film was shot. Director Boris Lehman leads the charge, drawing in moments of absurdist humour and inventive camera work; he keeps things raw and spontaneous. His encounters with the now much-missed Jean Rouch and Stephen Dwoskin are particularly touching and stand testament to their personal playfulness and candour. An engaging, absorbing, epic odyssey of a movie.
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Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1965)
Character: Himself
In 1964 Film Culture magazine chose Andy Warhol for its annual Independent Film award. The plan was to show some of Andy's films and have Andy come on stage and hand him the award. Andy said, no, he didn't want a public presentation.
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Notes for Jerome (1978)
Character: Self
During the summer of 1966 Jonas Mekas spent two months in Cassis, as a guest of Jerome Hill. Mekas visited him briefly again in 1967, with P. Adams Sitney. The footage of this film comes from those two visits. Later, after Jerome died, Mekas visited his Cassis home in 1974. Footage of that visit constitutes the epilogue of the film. Other people appear in the film, all friends of Jerome.
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Paradise Not Yet Lost (1979)
Character: Himself
The film is arranged in six chronologically-ordered parts, each filmed in a different location during Oona's third year.
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Scenes from Allen's Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (1997)
Character: Himself
This is a video record of the Buddhist Wake ceremony at Allen Ginsberg's apartment. You see Allen, now asleep forever, in his bed; some of his close friends; and the wrapping up and removal of Allen's body from the apartment. You hear Jonas' description of his last conversation with Allen, three days earlier. You see the final farewell at the Buddhist temple, 118 West 22nd Street, New York City, and some of his close friends: Patti Smith, Gregory Corso, LeRoy Jones-Baraka, Hiro Yamagata, Anne Waldman, and many others.
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Michael Snow Up Close (1996)
Character: Himself
MICHAEL SNOW UP CLOSE was produced on the occasion of The Michael Snow Project, a major, career-spanning, multi-venue retrospective of the artist. The documentary celebrates the multi-faceted shape of Snow's creative genius, including glimpses of his work in painting, sculpture, film, photo-works, performance, installations, and holography. Discussions with Snow, original documentation of his music and performance work, and excerpts from his avant-garde films, are complemented by interviews with filmmakers Jonas Mekas and Bruce Elder, Snow's dealer Av Isaacs, the architect Eb Zeidler, museum director Pierre Théberge, curator Louise Dompierre, and others. A deliberately conventional documentary about a deliberately unconventional artist.
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Day Nine (2007)
Character: Himself
The film documents an encounter at 202 Blvd Saint-Germain, in a cafe underneath Apollinaire's last place of residence. Jean-Jacques Lebel gives Jonas Mekas (who remains off screen), three objects associated with Apollinare: an autographed book, a Futurist manifesto, and one of Apollinaire's last drawings.
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Going Home (1972)
Character: Himself
A home movie by Adolfas Mekas and wife Pola Chapelle on their travels to Lithuania and Europe. It was filmed concurrently with the more highly regarded “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” by Jonas Mekas, brother to Adolfas.
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Jonas (1968)
Character: Himself
A verité portrait of Jonas Mekas making his daily rounds, JONAS shows us the underground impresario attending a peace rally, filming in Central Park, typing up notes at the Village Voice and projecting his latest rushes at the Film-Makers' Cooperative. A true New Yorker, Mekas seems to be everywhere at once, always with a Bolex camera slung over his shoulder. In detailing these routines, director Gideon Bachmann comes away with a striking time capsule of a city bent on art.
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I Had Nowhere to Go (2016)
Character: Himself
I Had Nowhere To Go is based on Jonas Mekas’s diary. It’s been over 70 years since he left his village in Lithuania to escape Nazi persecution. He was 22 years old. Today he is one of the last surviving members of a displaced generation and one of the greatest documenters of the human experience.
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Reminiszenzen aus Deutschland (2012)
Character: Himself
A narrative presented non-chronologically of Jonas Mekas's time in German forced labour camps and displaced person camps from 1944 to 1949, in which he quotes his diaries, as well as the German wartime writer Wolfgang Borchert.
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The Song of Avila (1967)
Character: Narrator
In 1966 I came up upon a book of Meher Baba, the Indian guru/scientist, in which he said that there are three great holy places in Europe: Avila, Assisi, and Fatima. In 1967, I decided to visit Avila where I had an enlightening experience. This is a filmed record of my visit to Avila, with my voice telling how I felt there and what happened (especially with the little dogs).
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Salvador Dalí at Work (2006)
Character: Self
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.
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Jonas in the Desert (1994)
Character: Self
Not a documentary in the strictest sense of the word. Rather, it is a journey through the world of the artist Jonas Mekas - one of the exponents of independent U.S. movies; founder and director of the New York Anthology Film Archive.
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I Don't Know Which Tree It Comes From that Fragrance (2017)
Character: Self
In his latest film, Mekas shares what he describes as “a valentine to Yoko Ono,” done in his signature diaristic style. Mixing the familiar 16mm film with DV video, he offers a fly-on-the-wall look at intimate moments spent with one of the foremost artists of that era, including performances by Ono and new footage of her recent work—a testament to her endurance and the friendships she has made and kept over the years.
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Jonas in the Brig (1965)
Character: Himself
A newsreel of Jonas Mekas shooting his filmed version of The Brig on the set of the Living Theatre production.
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Jonas tourne toujours (2002)
Character: Himself
A short portrait of Jonas Mekas on the occasion of his 2002 retrospective in Paris (for his 80th birthday). Through film clips and interviews, Mekas recounts his arrival in America, his early life in New York and his first filmmaking experiences. An introduction to his life and work.
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Underground New York (1968)
Character: Himself
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.
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Cinema Is Not 100 Years Old (1996)
Character: Himself
The real history of the cinema is the invisible history – history of friends getting together doing the thing the love – for us the cinema is beginning with every new buzz of the projector. With every new buzz of our cameras our hearts jump forwards, my friends! ―Jonas Mekas
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Meet The Kuchar Brothers (2006)
Character: N/A
Provides a rare glimpse into the world of George and Mike Kuchar, underground filmmaking brothers from the Bronx. Get to know the Kuchars, casually hanging out with John Waters at a party, looking at old yearbook photos with their high school classmate Gerard Malanga. Sit in on an extensive interview with the brothers at Anthology Film Archives.
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Journey to Lithuania (1971)
Character: Himself
During the trip back to Lithuania, Jonas Mekas made Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, Adolfas Mekas made Going Home, while Pola Chapelle, Adolfas’ wife, made this Journey to Lithuania, which both Jonas and Adolfas said was the best of these three films.
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Laboratorium Anthology (1999)
Character: Himself
Scenes from the life and work at Anthology Film Archives. Much of the footage in this video was shot by Auguste Varkalis.
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365 Day Project (2007)
Character: Himself
This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.
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Visionaries (2010)
Character: Himself
Documentary on Jonas Mekas and the American avant-garde cinema, with several new interviews and appearances and over 100 excerpts and examples. Detailed sequences on Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Peter Kubelka, Bob Downey, Su Friedrich, and Anthology Film Archives.
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Letter to John from Jonas (1999)
Character: N/A
Jonas Mekas' video letter to John Hanhardt, in which he declines an offer for Anthology to be taken on by the Guggenheim, insisting that they must maintain their hard-won independence. Many years ago, Jonas gave a copy to Ed Halter (of Light Industry); we think of it often.
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Poem Posters (1967)
Character: Self
... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Rudy Gernreich, Jonas Mekas and others.
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Makeshift (for Mekas) (2019)
Character: N/A
Jem Cohen's memory-tribute to Jonas Mekas displaces its first-person narration from voice-over to on-screen text. Diaristic New York street imagery from 2015 mingles with the red roses of Lithuania and a 'makeshift memorial' to this beloved figure of the avant-garde.
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My Mars Bar Movie (2011)
Character: himself
For some twenty years Mars Bar, on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue, Manhattan, has been my bar. That's where we went for beer and tequila whenever we had to take a break from our work at Anthology Film Archives, and it was also a bar where most of those who came to see movies at Anthology ended up after the shows. We always had a great time at Mars Bar. It was always open, there was always the juke box, and very often there was no electricity, and it was old and messy and it didn't want to be any other way — it was the last escape place left downtown New York. So this is my love letter to it, to my Mars Bar. Mars Bar as I knew it.
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Re: Maciunas and Fluxus (2011)
Character: N/A
“Drawing on his personal archives, Mekas has assembled a Fluxus vaudeville starring Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, and the late Nam June Paik. Most of the material is relatively recent although Ben Vautieur shows some early 1960s work to hilarious effect and Mekas channels Fluxus founder George Maciunas throughout.” – J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
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Friday The 13 Okt, Jonas Mekas (1996)
Character: Himself
Jonas, Birgit and Anja are leaving for the Brooklyn Bridge. By taxi, buying beer, drinking in the street, joking, running, dancing on the bridge. It was a very funny afternoon.
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The Song of Central Park (2006)
Character: Himself (voice)
During the course of a single winter’s day, January 16, 1966, Jonas Mekas captured impressionistic glimpses of people playing and working in Central Park and around the city on 16mm film. The kaleidoscope of skaters, strollers, vendors, and animals creates a multitude of patterns, while on the soundtrack Mekas comments candidly on the nature of cinema.
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Tapes (2020)
Character: N/A
The tapes in the program consist of some of Mekas’ earliest cassettes from the 1990s not long after he first began working with video as well as more recent mini-DV tapes from 2010s. The contents of the tapes have not been previously seen in their entirety. The footage provides rare insight into aspects of Mekas’ video-making practice, as well as his activities, thoughts, dreams, and concerns, especially during the later years of his life.
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The Invisible Father (2021)
Character: Self (archive footage)
In the 1960s, beat poet and experimental filmmaker Piero Heliczer helped shape New American Cinema, and was enmeshed with iconic filmmaker Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground at the very start of their careers.
Through interviews with family and friends, found photos, and archival footage, Piero’s daughter, Thérèse Casper, explores the promise and perils of leading an authentic, creative life, and the impact that it can have on the people you leave behind in the process. Wondering if she can make peace with her absent father if she can find a connection to him through his art, she explores the artistic legacy and life of a man she never knew.
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Salvador Dali, Happenings (2006)
Character: N/A
In 1963-64 Salvador Dali did a series of "Happenings" events in a New York. In all cases Peter Beard acted for Dali as both "production manager" and "casting director". The stars of the events in this film are Werushka and Taylor Mead.
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Doc (2008)
Character: Himself
The amazing adventures of forgotten American novelist and Paris Review founder, Harold Louis "Doc" Humes. His story is crammed full of ideas, about utopia, marijuana, literature, protest, paranoia and mental illness.
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Persistence of Vision (1984)
Character: Himself
A short documentary profile of the Anthology Film Archives, shot on the eve of the move to the historic 2nd Avenue Courthouse. Staff and patrons are interviewed, and films preserved by Anthology are spotlighted.
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All About Bolex (2015)
Character: N/A
"I developed a need to try to retain everything I was passing through, by means of my Bolex camera."
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A Report from Venice (2015)
Character: N/A
Opening of the Internet Saga Pavilion. At Palazzo Foscari Contarini, Venice. May 6 and 7, 2015.
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Interview and Reading: Jonas Mekas (1991)
Character: Himself
Jonas Mekas recites poems of his, both in English and Lithuanian. Exclusive Mekas interview by the poet Sparrow. The legendary poet-film critic and film diarist waxes philosophical in rare extended setting exhibiting his transcendental poetic humor. Jonas attacks the crass world of TV advertising and sell-out commercial filmmakers. Contributes zen anecdotes and filmmaking advice. Choice clips include Mekas' Film Diaries with deceivingly formalist amateur "home movie" style, but in small bursts of expression in a quick collage. Footage from Jonas' homeland as well as clips of famed pop figures John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Tiny Tim.
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Jonas Mekas Anthology (2022)
Character: Jonas Mekas
A portrait movie of the Godfather of American avantgarde cinema. Through material filmed primarily in the 1990s by both the directors and Jonas Mekas himself, a new insight appears on the filmmaking Lithuanian New Yorker who doesn't consider himself someone who makes films but a filmer.
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Cinema and Sanctuary (2019)
Character: Self
The astonishing story of the first documentary film school in the USA—The Institute of Film Techniques at The City College of New York. This groundbreaking program exposed thousands of working-class kids raised on Hollywood movies to the power of documentary film - all under the watchful eye of DADAist, pioneering experimental filmmaker and radical thinker, Hans Richter.
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Lavender (2010)
Character: Self
A wholesome moment: Jonas Mekas, MM Serra, Ken Jacobs, and Flo Jacobs take lavender from a stranger's bush.
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Diane the Zebra Woman (1962)
Character: N/A
Diane the Zebra Woman follows four women’s misadventures through the streets of New York City in 1962. All played by Flame Schon, the characters consist of The Detective, The Mother, The Child, and the Medium. Evocative of the scene from which it emerged, the film features cameos from integral figures like William Levy, Jonas Mekas, Paul Morrissey and features an original score composed by Malcolm Goldstein.
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A Letter from Greenpoint (2004)
Character: Mekas
In February 2004, after 30 years of my life in SoHo, I made a decision to leave SoHo and move to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This video is about what it feels like to leave a place in which one has spent more time than any other place, and which was also the place of my family life. I am somewhere else now. It’s about beginning of growing roots in a new place, new home, with new friends, new thoughts, experiences. This video is also about video. When in 1949 I began filming with my Bolex, it took me fifteen years to really master it so that my Bolex would do for me what I wanted. When in 1987 I got my first Sony camera I thought it would be different. But no. Only today, after working with the video camera for fifteen years, I feel like it had become an extension of my eye, my body, "A Letter from Greenpoint" being my first real video work.
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Maya Deren, Take Zero (2012)
Character: Himself
This documentary interweaves celluloid and voice recordings by Maya Deren, and colleagues who knew her firsthand: Jean Rouch, Jonas Mekas, Alexander Hammid, Cecile Starr etc. Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an experimental filmmaker. In the 1940s and 1950s she made several influential avant-garde films, such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Images from this and her other work are used in this documentary. You can also hear her voice, as well as accounts by contemporaries such as Jean Rouch and Jonas Mekas.
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3.11 A Sense of Home (2011)
Character: Himself (voice) (segment "Mt. Ventoux")
In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.
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Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV (2023)
Character: Self (archive footage)
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.
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Notes on an American Film Director at Work (2008)
Character: Self
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows his friend, film director Martin Scorsese, and his cast and crew, through various locations during the shooting of his film The Departed, released in 2006.
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Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990)
Character: Self
Iconic American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol is the subject of this documentary, which looks at both his life and his influence on pop culture. The film provides details about Warhol's upbringing in Pittsburgh and follows his move to New York City, where he found massive success turning pop imagery into art and eventually founded "The Factory," his famed studio and party venue. Among the many notables interviewed are Dennis Hopper, David Hockney, and Roy Lichtenstein.
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Empire (1965)
Character: Self (uncredited)
A single static wide shot of the Empire State Building from early evening until nearly 3 am the next day.
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George (2018)
Character: Self
In 1961 Lithuanian American artist and impresario George Maciunas established the avant-garde art movement Fluxus. George details the rise of Fluxus following a sensationalized tour of “concerts” in Europe in 1962, and continuing in New York for most of the 1960s and ’70s. During this time Maciunas was converting the dying industrial buildings of Soho into a network of artists’ lofts, creating one of the first official real estate co-ops of artist-owned buildings. Maciunas’s life and legacy—as recounted by artists of his generation, including Yoko Ono and Jonas Mekas—ignited debates that remain pivotal to artists working today.
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Film: The Living Record of Our Memory (2022)
Character: Self
Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.
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Cinématon (1978)
Character: N°1590
Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.
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The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man (1981)
Character: N/A
“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t [...] The awed couple do battle with the status quo and teach the world to dance on the head of a bin. Rice detects real dignity in Bryan and amazing grace in Mead as they essay solitary promenades through the parks, subways and streets of a wintery New York landscape. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice, edited and scored by Taylor Mead.” –Edward Leffingwell
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Gena Rowlands — Unabhängig im Kino und im Leben (2019)
Character: Self
An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.
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Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007)
Character: Self
In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.
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Self Discovery for Social Survival (2019)
Character: Narrator (voice)
Self Discovery for Social Survival is a collaborative surf and music film produced by Brooklyn based record label, Mexican Summer and Pilgrim Surf + Supply, a New York based surf and outdoor brand. Filmed in Mexico, the Maldives and Iceland in three separate vignettes, musicians (Allah Las, Connan Mockasin, Andrew Van Wyngarden of MGMT, and Peaking Lights) alongside pro-surfers,embark on a journey that combines a symbiotic relationship between music and the waves, the environment, and local culture. Poetically narrated by the legendary avant-garde film maker Jonas Mekas.
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Beyond the Bolex (2018)
Character: Self
Filmmaker Alyssa Bolsey stumbles on a treasure trove of vintage cameras, old film reels, fading photos, technical drawings and boxes of documents that belonged to her great-grandfather Jacques Bolsey. Among the many boxes, she spots an old movie camera with the word "Bolex" embossed on its side and a dangling tag with the date, "1927." Entranced, she embarks on a journey to reveal how Jacques aimed to disrupt the early film industry with a motion picture camera for the masses.
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River of Fundament (2014)
Character: Wake Guest
Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.
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Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2009)
Character: Himself
Using his trademark flicker method, Ken Jacobs pays homage to the oldest type of color film, Kodachrome (whose production was discontinued in 2009) and to Jonas Mekas, who managed to breathe life into Kodachrome.
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Galaxie (1966)
Character: Himself
In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.
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Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)
Character: Self
Jonas Mekas adjusts to a life in exile in New York in his autobiographical film, shot between 1949 and 1963.
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Song of Avignon (1998)
Character: Self
Reflections on my 1966 trip to Avignon that helped me to survive a deep crisis I was going through. Texts from my diaries of that period on the soundtrack are read by Angus MacLise.
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Step Across the Border (1990)
Character: Butterfly Wing
An avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith.
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Fragments of Paradise (2022)
Character: Self (archive footage)
For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, documented his life in what came to be known as his diary films. From his arrival in New York City as a displaced person in 1949 to his death in 2019, he chronicled the trauma and loss of exile while pioneering institutions to support the growth of independent film in the United States. Fragments of Paradise is an intimate look at his life and work constructed from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries-including never-before-seen tapes and unpublished audio recordings. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, and a man who tried to make sense of it all... with a camera.
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Invocation: Maya Deren (1986)
Character: Himself
Maya Deren is a legend of avant-garde cinema. This authoritative biography of the charismatic filmmaker, poet and anthropologist features excerpts from her pioneering Meshes of the Afternoon and her unfinished documentary on Haiti, interviews with Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas, and recordings of her lectures. Narrated by actress Helen Mirren, this definitive documentary offers startling insights into one of the most intriguing, accomplished figures in cinema history.
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The Velvet Underground (2021)
Character: Self
Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
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What Is Cinema? (2013)
Character: Self
Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson to new interviews with Mike Leigh, David Lynch, and Jonas Mekas, Oscar-winning filmmaker Chuck Workman shows what these filmmakers and others do that can't be expressed in words - but only in cinema.
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Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground (2018)
Character: N/A
The 29-minute experimental film Christmas on Earth caused a sensation when it first screened in New York City in 1964. Its orgy scenes, double projections and overlapping images shattered artistic conventions and announced a powerful new voice in the city's underground film scene. All the more remarkable, that vision belonged to a teenager, 18-year-old Barbara Rubin. A Zelig of the '60s, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan to Kabbalah and bewitched Allen Ginsberg. The same unbridled creativity that inspired her to make films when women simply didn't, saw her breach yet another male domain, Orthodox Judaism, before her mysterious death at 35. Lifelong friend Jonas Mekas saved all her letters, creating a rich archive that filmmaker Chuck Smith carefully sculpts into this fascinating portrait of a nearly forgotten artist. An avante-garde maverick, a rebel in a man's world, Barbara Rubin regains her rightful place in film history.
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Tiny Tim: King for a Day (2020)
Character: Himself
The story of Tiny Tim’s improbable rise to stardom is the ultimate fairytale - and so is that of his downfall. For a brief time, the shy and truly unusual outsider artist was the biggest star in the world.
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Imagine (1972)
Character: Self
A surreal, half-fiction, half real life footage of a day in the life of John lennon and Yoko Ono, composed to music from John's historic 'Imagine' album and Yoko's 'Fly'.
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Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012)
Character: Jonas Mekas
"A motion picture composed of brief diaristic scenes not used in completed films from the years 1960-2000; and self-referential video footage taped during the editing. Brief glimpses of family, friends, girl-friends, the City, seasons of the year, travels. Occasionally I talk, reminisce, or play music I taped during those earlier years, plus more recent piano improvisations by Auguste Varkalis. It's a kind of autobiographical, diaristic poem, celebration of happiness and life. I consider myself a happy man." - Jonas Mekas
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Fire in the East: A Portrait of Robert Frank (1986)
Character: Himself
Presents an intimate view of four decades of the Swiss-born artist Robert Frank who has had an extraordinary influence on contemporary photography and filmmaking. This documentary which examines his life through his films and photographs, includes interviews with many of his collaborators and contemporaries. Written, directed and edited by Philip Brookman, Amy Brookman
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Sugrįžę iš Niujorko (2021)
Character: Himself
Two artists, whose work was constrained during the Soviet era, fled to New York. There, they met with their guru Jonas Mekas, the creator of avant-garde filmmaking. He led the way into the bohemian circles and helped them to discover creative freedom.
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EXPRMNTL (2016)
Character: himself
Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium. To celebrate cinema’s 50 year existence, they put together a side program showcasing the medium in all its shapes and forms: surrealist film, absolute film, dadaist films, abstract film,… The side program would soon become a festival in its own right: ‘EXPRMNTL’, dedicated to experimental cinema, and would become a mythical gathering of the avant-garde…
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It Came from Kuchar (2009)
Character: Self (archive footage)
It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.
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J. Mekas (1980)
Character: Self
In 1977, Robertas Verba followed Jonas Mekas in Lithuania, his second trip there after he left the country in 1944.
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ORG (1979)
Character: Self (archive footage)
Explores the complex relationship between the spirit, body, and mind. The film is a nightmare with closed eyes because it counts among the most terrible moments of my life, my second exile, which lasted a very long time. Inspired by an ancient Hindu legend.
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![Screen Test [ST211]: Jonas Mekas](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w45//5yEUYxLQWc71aL7OGrhSnpslsQO.jpg)
