Diaries, Notes and Sketches aka Walden

I’m shooting a diary, so I live, I live, so I shoot, says Jonas Mekas, a legend of the American avant-garde, in one of the scenes. From the 1950s on, the director of Lithuanian origin did not part with his handy Bolex 16 mm camera and recorded everyday life. The materials shot between 1964 and 1968, gave rise to Walden, his first film diary, an impressionistic chronicle of moments, both important and completely prosaic. An unsteady though not annoying camera catches various meetings, scraps of events and experiences. After Central Park we chase Stan Brakhage, dive into the first concert of The Velvet Underground, run into Jack Smith, Yoko Ono and Nico - the list of the 1960s counter and pop culture icons is truly impressive. Walden thus becomes a subjective panorama of New York's artistic and social life, an urban cinematic symphony for the Beatnik generation - at the same time personal and committed, emotionally unstable and unafraid of some exaltation. And just like Alan Ginsberg’s literary works - in constant pursuit of the authentic. 

announcing a retrospective at the 2022 New Horizons IFF in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birthday