Jonas Mekas
FilmmakerKnown for: diary filmmaking; co-founder of the Film-Makers' Cooperative
Jonas Mekas arrived in New York as a displaced person from Lithuania in 1949 and spent the following seven decades documenting his life and the lives of the people around him in a diary film practice that produced more than 300 hours of footage. He co-founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative in 1962 and Film Culture magazine, becoming the central figure of the American avant-garde film community. His Walden (1969) and Lost Lost Lost (1976) are among the most significant works of personal cinema.
Gear & Materials(1)
Bolex
The Bolex H16 is a spring-wound 16mm film camera first produced in the 1930s and manufactured in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland for decades. Its mechanical simplicity, reliability, and optical quality made it the instrument of choice for avant-garde and experimental filmmakers. Jonas Mekas used one for decades of diary films; Stan Brakhage made most of his works with one.
“Mekas used a Bolex H16 camera throughout his diary film practice from the 1950s onward; his use of the camera is documented in his own writings, in the catalog for his MoMA retrospective, and in multiple interviews about his working method.”
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