Adolfas Mekas

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
Sep 30, 1925 (99 years old)
Death date
May 31, 2011

Adolfas Mekas

Known For

3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)
0h 2m
Movie 2019

3 Friends Singing (...in the Desert)

A short portrait of Jonas Mekas by filmmaker and veteran Jonas chronicler Peter Sempel.

365 Day Project
16h 39m
Movie 2007

365 Day Project

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.

Certain Women
1h 15m
Movie 2004

Certain Women

Caldwell's pulp storytelling, proto-feminist stance and unabashed social dramatization of his characters are a distinct vision of the condition of women -- specifically working class women. His broadly drawn themes of small town hypocrisy and restrictive moral values contextualize the titular characters' struggle for sexual expression, stability and independence. Certain Women is a disconcerting parable that pays tribute to but also defies the 50s period style of Caldwell, opting for contemporary small town situations and cinematic style. This cautionary tale of four heroic yet ordinary women is fashioned out of the past but relies on observations of the present historical moment and its political reality.

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
4h 48m
Movie 2000

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

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Birth of a Nation
1h 25m
Movie 1997

Birth of a Nation

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
1h 21m
Movie 1996

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

A 1971–72 documentary film by Jonas Mekas. It revolves around Mekas' trip back to Semeniškiai, the village of his birth.

The Genius
1h 26m
Movie 1993

The Genius

A ramshackle underground SF satire set and shot in the self-absorbed art world of lower Manhattan, written, produced, and directed by Joe Gibbons, who also plays one of the lead parts. Gibbons plays a mad scientist who's developed a technique for transferring personalities from one person's body to another; he becomes obsessed with an outlaw artist (played by performance artist Karen Finley) who destroys paintings in various galleries as a form of anarchist, anticapitalist protest.

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
2h 29m
Movie 1986

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

Biography

Adolfas Mekas (born on September 30th 1924 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania and died on May 31st 2011 in Poughkeepsie, New York) was a Lithuanian filmmaker, writer, director, editor, actor, educator and mentor. Adolfas Mekas collaborated with his brother Jonas Mekas to establish the seminal magazine Film Culture, and the Film-Maker’s Cooperative. He was associated with George Maciunas as well as the Fluxus art movement. His short films incorporate a comic and anarchic spirit, highlighted in his feature ‘Hallelujah the Hills’ (1963), which was featured at the Cannes Film Festival and is now classified as an American classic. Adolfas Mekas played a key role in the experimental film society, the ‘New American Cinema’ in the 1960s.

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