Jonas Mekas

Lithuanian-born Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) is known as the godfather of the American avant-garde. Mekas made films and wrote for The Village Voice and Film Culture, the magazine he founded with his brother. In addition to his poems and films, the importance of Mekas lies mainly in the context he created for other artists. He organised festivals and events and founded the New York Film-Makers’ Co-op and the Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s most important archives and screening sites for avant-garde cinema.