Event

Celebrating Jonas Mekas

As a poet, publisher, filmmaker, curator, critic, archivist, rabble rouser and hopeless romantic, Lithuanian-born Jonas Mekas (1922-2018) was a tireless advocate for the underdog and was without a doubt the worlds foremost advocate for personal/underground/avant-garde cinema. San Francisco Cinematheque and Canyon Cinema celebrate his life with a special screening of Mekas Birth of a Nation (1997): 160 portraits, sketches and glimpses of avant-garde, independent filmmakers and film activists between 1955 and 1996.

"Why Birth of a Nation? Because the film independents IS a nation in itself. We are surrounded by commercial cinema Nation same way as the indigenous people of the United States or of any other country are surrounded by the Ruling Powers. We are the invisible, but essential nation of cinema. We are the cinema." Jonas Mekas