FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE / URYWKI RAJU

USA | 2022 | COLOR & B&W | DCP | 98’ | ENGLISH, LITHUANIAN

It is hard to find someone comparable to Jonas Mekas in rebellious independent cinema, in the poetic avant-garde. It was probably even harder for a self-exile of a Soviet Lithuania to become the high priest of New York culture during its most fertile decades. Davison’s biggest achievement is that in 98 minutes she manages to hide skillfully behind Mekas’ broken words, his torrential presence and his images. His fragments of paradise is a roaringly emotional synopsis of a life’s work. In it you see some of the greats (Jarmusch, Bogdanovich, Scorsese) inspired from this giant, even further in beats the heart of an industrious genius who never stopped saying he was a poet first, a director then. I.D.

DIRECTOR: K.D. Davison
DoP: Bill Kirstein
MUSIC: Osei Essed, Saul Simon MacWilliams
EDITOR: Michael Levine

K.D. DAVISON
Awarded director. This documentary received Best Documentary on Cinema at last year’s Venice Festival. According to her she is driven by the belief that cinematic creation can make us better. This is her second film after the renowned ‘The Soul of America’.

FILMOGRAPHY
2022 Fragments of Paradise
2020 The Soul of America