Jonas Mekas
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
Format VOD
Original format 16mm
Year 1971
Language(s) English
Artist(s) Jonas Mekas
Sous-titres English, French, Lithuanian, Korean, Spanish, Chinese
Running time 121 min
Films
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA (1971) 121'
Description
"The film is made up of three parts. The first part consists of footage I shot with my first Bolex during my early years in America, mainly from 1950 to 1953. You see my brother Adolfas and me as we were at that time; various images of immigrants in Brooklyn, picnicking, dancing, singing; the streets of Williamsburg. The second part was filmed in August 1971 in Lithuania. Almost all the images come from Semeniskiai, the village where I was born. You see the old house, my mother (born in 1887), all the brothers, joking around, celebrating our homecoming. You don't really see today's Lithuania: you perceive it only through the memories of a displaced person returning home for the first time in twenty-five years. The third part begins with a parenthesis in Elmshorn, a suburb of Hamburg, where we spent a year in a forced labor camp during the war. After closing this parenthesis, we are in Vienna where I meet up with some of my best friends – Peter Kubelka, Hermann Nitsch, Annette Michelson, Ken Jacobs. The film ends with the fire at the Vienna fruit market in August 1971."
— Jonas Mekas