In a series of five letters to each other, presented in Spanish and English, José Luis Guerín and Jonas Mekas exchange ideas, thoughts, visions and reflections on cinema, realism and life. A trip through Paris, a visit to Henry David Thoreau’s hut at Walden Forest, the revisiting of footage in the cutting room, conversations with film critic Nika Bohinc, travels through Krakow, meals shared with friends, fleeting sights from a moving train, observations from the Venice Festival are all woven in highly personal letters that testify to Mekas’ principle (also shared by Guerín) that cinema is a reaction to life. Each filmmaker revisits past images, framed by commentaries that offer telling insights into their working methodologies. This is a film about friendship and craft, about poetry and cinema, modes of communicating and fragments of life captured on screen. ‘I have a need to tape, for whatever reason’, states Mekas, ‘I do not know what makes me do it, but I have to do it, I just have to do it’. Correspondence is both a visual trace of this journey and a memorable illustration of Thoreau’s dictum that ‘the world is but a canvas to our imaginations’. –BFI
José Luis Guerin was born in Barcelona. He started his career directing experimental films from 1975 to 1983, then directed his first feature film in 1983, Los Motivos de Berta. His film received a special price at the Berlin Forum. In 1988, José Luis Guerin directed the Spanish episode of City Life – the other episodes being directed by Reichenbach, Kieslowski, Agresti, Tarr, Sen et Rijneke. City Life was awarded in Berlin, Rotterdam and Montreal Film Festivals. In 1990, José Luis Guerin directed Innisfree, presented in competition at Cannes International Film Festival. In 1997, Tren de Sombras – presented during the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes – obtained the Golden and Silver Melies awarded by the European Federation of Fantasy Film Festivals. Then, in 2001, José Luis Guerin directed En construccion, awarded in San Sebastian Festival and, in 2007, En la ciudad de Sylvia, selected by the 2007 Venice Film Festival. —dissidenz.com
Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York. In 1944, Jonas Mekas and his brother, Adolfas, were taken by the Nazis and imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany for eight months. After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48 and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S. settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16-mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering cinema 16, and he began screening his own films in 1953. He has been one of the leading figures of American avant-garde filmmaking or the “New American Cinema,” as he dubbed it in the late ‘50s, playing various roles: in 1954, he became editor and chief of Film Culture; in 1958 he began writing his “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice; in 1962 he co-founded… read more
A rediscovered interview, a new issue, a fresh round of lists of the best of 2011.
Here’s where we’ll be gathering news and reviews from this year’s edition.
