For more than 70 years, the New York-based Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas, captured almost everything about his own daily life, defining the diary-film. With his unmistakable persona and bohemian lifestyle, he inspired countless artists, from Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Andy Warhol, and John Waters, to Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Jim Jarmusch – all drawn to his inexhaustible spirit and belief in the transformative power of cinema. Mekas was also a pioneer who dedicated his life to building an institution around the rise of independent film in the USA. Crafted from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries, much of which has never been shown before, FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE is a film about the quest for beauty, even amidst deep sorrow, of a man who despite his many traumas, tried to find meaning in everything... using the camera.
