A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jackie Raynal, originally aired 29 May 2016.
05-29-2016
53 min
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Jackie Raynal
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. In 1944, he and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the War he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949 the UN Refugee Organization brought both brothers to New York City, where they settled down in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Two months after his arrival in New York he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon got deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he began his legendary Movie Journal column in the Village Voice. In 1962 he founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative, and in 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema, and a screening venue.
During all this time he continued writing poetry and making films. To this date he has published more than 20 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His Lithuanian poetry is now part of Lithuanian classic literature and his films can be found in leading museums around the world. He is largely credited for developing the diaristic forms of cinema. Mekas has also been active as an academic, teaching at the New School for Social Research, the International Center for Photography, Cooper Union, New York University, and MIT.
Mekas' film The Brig was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963. Other films include Walden (1969), Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Lost Lost Lost (1975), Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (1990), Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (1992), As I was Moving Ahead I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000), Letter from Greenpoint (2005), Sleepless Nights Stories (2011) and Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man. In 2007, he completed a series of 365 short films released on the internet -- one film every day -- and since then has continued to share new work on his website.
Since 2000, Mekas has expanded his work into the area of film installations, exhibiting at the Serpentine Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), PS1 Contemporary Art Center MoMA, Documenta of Kassel, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Venice Biennale.
Jacky Raynal is French directress, actress and film editor. She's born in 1940 near Montpellier. The film maker has a diploma in Linguistics. In the early 60's, already a photographer, young Jacky Raynal starts working in the field of cinema. She's assistent film editor for the documentarys of G. Patriss and F. Vienne. After that, she edits the first films of E. Rohmer. In 1965 J. Raynal gets the license of senior film editor for feature films in CNC (National Cinema Center). Now she's working with the film directors of the New Wave. She edits all of the skecthes of Six in Paris, directed by Jean Douchet, Jean Rouch, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol. Jacky Raynal continues to work in editing till the end of 70's.
In 1968, with S. Boissonas and O. Mosset, she's the founder of the Zanzibar group. She works with Philippe Garrel, Serge Bard, Daniel Pommereulle, Alain Jouffroy and Patrick Deval. J. Raynal shoots her first feature film Two Times in Barcelona. In 1972, the movie wins the Grand Prix in the Festival of Hyères/Toulon. At that time she's already living in New York. There, between 1975 and 1992, she's responsible for the programs of Carnegie Hall Cinema and Bleeker Street Cinema. She shows there numerous independent international films. Her job in New York is appreciated by F. Truffaut (he compares it with the French Cinematheque) and awarded twice by the Village Voice in 1981 and 1991.
J. Raynal directs New York Story (Grand Prix in Melbourne) and Hotel New York. In the same time, she plays in several movies, organises numerous international cinema festivals, like Colombian Film Festival, Israel Film Festival or Avignon Film Festival. From 1973 to 1986, with Sid Geffen, they're publishing the independent international cinema review 1000 Eyes Magazine.
From 2000, Jacky Raynal directs numerous documentarys, like Notes on Jonas Mekas (2000) or Eric Rohmer, the Film Maker (2010).
In 2010, Jacky Raynal is rewarded for her work in arts the Légion d'Honneur (Knight in the Order Arts and Letters).
A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists.
A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.