Jonas Mekas’s diary film lovingly records a return to his native Lithuania after 27 years of absence. The émigré avant-garde pioneer negotiates the trauma of being a “displaced person” by weaving together bittersweet memories with moments of beauty and loss: finding a home in cinema forever.

Jonas and Adolfas Mekas arrived in Brooklyn in 1949. They were former prisoners of German labor camps, exiled from their Lithuanian village. For years the Mekas brothers had no contact with their family, which was put under surveillance because of Jonas’s anti-Stalinist stance years earlier. This film is the compelling document of a divided family and their long-delayed reunion.

Read more about the film from the National Gallery of Art’s series Artists, Amateurs, Alternative Spaces: Experimental Cinema in Eastern Europe, 1960–1990.

Watch with a Mubi subscription or rent on Amazon Prime. Watch an excerpt for free on YouTube.

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Virtual Film Picks are inspired by the in-person Friday Night Films at the Wende program series. This selection is part of a curated list of weekly movie suggestions that can be watched at home, in conjunction with #WendeOnline.