Diary and Memory | Jonas Mekas and Andrei Tarkovsky

Doors open at 16.45 with a 17.00 sharp start. Please reserve free ticket at the link above.

Whereas the diary films of Jonas Mekas are a specific kind of essay film, the works of Tarkovsky are definitely fiction films. But also in his films essayistic elements play a role. An interesting question is how both filmmakers deal with memory, and how they use moving images to reflect on the present and the past.

Jonas Mekas (1922 – 2019) was born in a little village in Lithuania, but spent most of his life in New York City. There he became a driving force in avant-garde cinema and a filmmaker himself, known for his poetic diary films. We will watch examples from Mekas’s work throughout his career, which spanned 70 years, to gain an understanding of his 'diary writing' in moving images.

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 – 1986) is regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema. He is an author-filmmaker who created a new cinematographic language and succeeded in making films with an immeasurable depth that are poetically searching for essence and truth about human existence. We will watch his film often characterised as ‘autobiographical’:

The Mirror [Zerkalo] (1975), 108 mins

We look forward to seeing you there!