Jonas Mekas Shiver of Memory

Since my student days I have been a great admirer of Jonas Mekas (1922-2019). Mekas is the filmmaker of memory. So my shock was great when in June 2018 the historian Michael Casper claimed in The New York Review of Books that Mekas had deliberately forgotten or misrepresented the murder of 2,400 Jews on August 8, 1941 in his native Biržai. Casper found no indication that Mekas had participated in the massacre. He called him to account not so much because of his actions but because of his memory: Mekas had "forgotten" things he should not have forgotten. Mekas found the accusation ridiculous. Who to believe? Was I to condemn Mekas too? How to deal with this dilemma as an admirer of Mekas’ oeuvre? Research was my solution. It is special to be able to share and debate my findings with an audience precisely in Lithuania, only 300 km from Biržai. (Presentation supported by the Dutch Literary Fund)

Peter Delpeut (1956) is a Dutch film director and writer. He makes films in many genres: found footage (Lyrical Nitrate; Diva dolorosa), documentary (In Loving Memory; Immer Fernweh; Walk the Land) and feature films (The Forbidden Quest; Felice…Felice…). He writes novels, essays on art and travel stories. From 1988 to 1995, he was curator and deputy director of the Dutch Film Museum (now Eye). His book-length essay Jonas Mekas Shiver of Memory, written originally in Dutch, is newly published in the USA. His themes both in film and writing are memory, history, fictional biography, and coping with loss.