VILNIUS — The ashes of Lithuanian-born American filmmaker Jonas Mekas were buried back in his home country on Sunday, months after his death in New York, public broadcaster LRT reported.

In a private ceremony, his ashes were buried next to his parents at a cemetery in Semeniskiai, northeastern Lithuania, where he was born in 1922.

Mekas was a key figure of US underground cinema and was widely regarded as the "godfather of avant-garde cinema".

After being imprisoned in a labor camp in Germany during World War II, Mekas settled in New York in 1949, where he went on to become a pillar of independent film.

"He has always been deeply connected to Lithuania through the memory dimension in his films and his Lithuanian poetry," art critic Lolita Jablonskiene said.

At the time of his death at age 96 on Jan. 23, Mekas was still the artistic director of New York's Anthology Film Archives, which he co-founded in 1970. — AFP