Jonas Mekas, godfather of American experimental film, dies at 96

Lithuanian-born American director Jonas Mekas, one of the leading figures of avant-garde cinema in the United States, died Wednesday. He was 96. “Jonas passed away quietly and peacefully early this morning,” the New York-based Anthology Film Archives, which Mekas co-founded, posted on Instagram, saying he died at home with his family at his bedside. “He will be greatly missed but his light shines on.” Born in 1922 in a northeastern Lithuanian village, Mekas was imprisoned in a labor camp in Germany during World War II. He settled in New York in 1949, where he went on to become a pillar of independent film. Mekas approached cinema from multiple angles — as a filmmaker, but also