A newly appointed teacher arrives at a remote village school in 1947. The famous journalist and distinguished poet was downgraded for illegal publications and forbidden anti-Soviet verses. Suspicious locals still prefer to test his loyalties, while children wilingly recite his verses from 'To My Soviet Motherland', written under pressure to prase Uncle Lenin. Eventually, an unforgotten friend shows him a secret wintery path to the Dainava resistance platoon's underground bunker.
Antanas Sutkus. An in-depth look into the soul of a man who could capture attention and find a way to the hearts of people he photographed. Little did they know of the difficult experiences he kept in his heart.
A portrait movie of the Godfather of American avantgarde cinema. Through material filmed primarily in the 1990s by both the directors and Jonas Mekas himself, a new insight appears on the filmmaking Lithuanian New Yorker who doesn't consider himself someone who makes films but a filmer.
For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, documented his life in what came to be known as his diary films. From his arrival in New York City as a displaced person in 1949 to his death in 2019, he chronicled the trauma and loss of exile while pioneering institutions to support the growth of independent film in the United States. Fragments of Paradise is an intimate look at his life and work constructed from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries-including never-before-seen tapes and unpublished audio recordings. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, and a man who tried to make sense of it all... with a camera.
The tapes in the program consist of some of Mekas’ earliest cassettes from the 1990s not long after he first began working with video as well as more recent mini-DV tapes from 2010s. The contents of the tapes have not been previously seen in their entirety. The footage provides rare insight into aspects of Mekas’ video-making practice, as well as his activities, thoughts, dreams, and concerns, especially during the later years of his life.