Correspondence Jonas Mekas - J. L. Guerín

Jonas Mekas, José Luis Guerín | ES/USA 2011 | 96 min. foto

Material: HD, DV
Format: BluRay
Original language: Spanish, English

Camera: Jonas Mekas, José Luis Guerín
Editing: Jonas Mekas, José Luis Guerín
Sound: Jonas Mekas, José Luis Guerín

Production: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco (UNAM), La Casa Encendida, Acción Cultural Española, José Luis Guerin, Jonas Mekas Films

Print/Sales: CCCB

German Premiere

José Luis Guerin takes an idea coming from Jonas Mekas: film is a response to life. With this concept in mind, they start exchanging a series of letters and develop a personal relationship which reveals the impressions and similarities of two filmmakers linked by their wish to share opinions and concerns. They establish a unique relationship through a correspondence displayed in the eyes of the viewer and in search of his sympathy, thus creating a new intimate space for thought. Correspondences: José Luis Guerin-Jonas Mekas shows the experimentation with the expressive language and the visual reflections of two artists who have found a new form of creation and use of images. The series of exchanged letters involves the activation of different times: the shooting of the first delivery, opening a road at random; the waiting time; the reply, a new letter stemming from the previous one and demanding a new one; and, finally, the time of screening. – Festival Punto de Vista, Navarra

José Luis Guerín, born in Barcelona in 1960. His work has a poetic, reflexive language and an unsophisticated style. He teaches at the University Pompeu Fabra.He has received numerous awards, including the National Film Award of Spain (Premio Nacional de Cinematografía, 2001).

Jonas Mekas was born in Lithuania in 1922. In 1944, he was taken by the Nazis and spent eight months in a forced labour camp. After the war, he moved to New York with his brother. Two weeks after arriving in America, he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex 16mm camera and began to record moments of his own life that he would later include in a series of films that made him one of the leading figures of American avant-garde cinema. In the 1960s, he co-founded the Film-Maker’s Co-op (FMC) and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, which eventually became the Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s most important experimental and avant-garde film archives.