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28 May 2016: Lost Lost Lost

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Lost Lost Lost
Jonas Mekas
1976 | 180 min | B/W | 16mm

Poet and hero of the American counter-culture, Jonas Mekas invented the diary form of filmmaking. Lost Lost Lost comprises fourteen years of filming, starting from his arrival in America as a political refugee. It documents the New York counterculture of the '50s and the development of Mekas' own filming style.

"The period I am dealing with in these six reels was a period of desperation, of attempts to desperately grow roots into the new ground, create new memories. In these six painful reels I tried to indicate how it feels to be an exile, how I felt in those years. They describe the mood of a Displaced Person who hasn't yet forgotten his native country but hasn't yet gained a new one. The sixth reel is a transitional reel where we begin to see some relaxation, where I begin to find moments of happiness. New life begins…" – Jonas Mekas

"The borderline is fading between an artifact – an 'œuvre d’art', conceived as such, a pure product of stylized imagination – and what can be described as a poet's account of events; as sincere and as honest as only a poet's account can be. Maybe Jonas Mekas' Lost Lost Lost has just marked the beginning of a new genre. In the line of a Gide, of a Sartre, of a Malraux. But in film." – Antonin J. Liehm

Part of our Jonas Mekas season