Film-Letter: the Beginning, Exchanging and Narration in Jonas Mekas and José Luis Guerín’s Correspondence
Film-Letter: the Beginning, Exchanging and Narration in Jonas Mekas and José Luis Guerín’s Correspondence

Summary/Abstract: In 2011, Jonas Mekas and José Luis Guerín finished their collective film project, Correspondence: Jonas Mekas – J. L. Guerín, a series of ‘film-letters’ between the two contemporary filmmakers. The film starts with Guerín (Letter to Jonas Mekas no. I), and ends, also with Guerín (Letter to Jonas Mekas no. 5). The film includes nine film-letters between the two. The film is interesting, as it is not only a project across time and space – it took three years to complete, and the correspondences sent and received from numerous locations across the globe – but is also that rarest of filmmaking, so close to diary film and first-person cinema, yet with something different waiting to be discovered.In this paper I shall discuss the following characteristics in the film correspondence between Guerín and Mekas, in order to give a clearer picture of what exactly is a film-letter:1) When is the (real) beginning of film-letters?2) The continuity and exchange of the filmed subjects and themes.3) The narration: the use of images plus voice-overs in film-letters.4) The question of audience.

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