My Paris Movie

My Paris Movie

2011 · 159 min · Documentary

For some time I had been thinking about doing something with my Paris footage, of which I have many many hours. So [curator Danièle Hibon’s] suggestion [to make a new work celebrating 20 years of cinema at the Jeu de Paume museum] came just in time. I spent some three months going through my Paris footage and I managed to reduce it to the length you will be seeing, two hours and 39 minutes. It was very very hard to do so. I have so many friends in Paris, so many memories – and it’s all on video. So this is my love letter to Paris. To its streets, to the river Seine, to its cafes, bistros, bars, to the jambon de Paris, and, especially, to all of you, my Paris friends!

Directed by Jonas Mekas

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365 Day Project

365 Day Project · 2007

365 Day Project

MovieDocumentary

This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life · 1986

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

MovieDocumentary

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty · 2000

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

MovieDocumentary

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Song of Avignon

Song of Avignon · 1998

Song of Avignon

MovieDocumentary

Jonas Mekas reflects on a 1966 trip to Avignon that offered solace during a period of personal crisis. Combining diary texts read by Angus MacLise with images of place and memory, the film becomes a lyrical meditation on pain, survival, and the restorative power of reflection.

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches · 1968

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

MovieDocumentary

Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends, lovers, and artistic idols. Blending everyday encounters with portraits of the avant-garde art scene, it forms an epic, personal meditation on community, creativity, and the passage of time.

Guns of the Trees

Guns of the Trees · 1961

Guns of the Trees

Barbara, a young woman consumed by despair, contemplates suicide, while a man she meets in a church and a married couple struggle to persuade her that life is still worth living. Mekas’s film weaves this intimate drama into a larger reflection on alienation, politics, and the turbulence of early 1960s America.

Lost, Lost, Lost

Lost, Lost, Lost · 1976

Lost, Lost, Lost

MovieDocumentary

Drawn from footage shot between 1949 and 1963, Jonas Mekas’s autobiographical diary film chronicles his early years in exile, capturing the struggle to build a new life in New York and his gradual discovery of a vibrant artistic community.

Birth of a Nation

Birth of a Nation · 1997

Birth of a Nation

MovieDocumentary

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania · 1972

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

MovieDocumentary

Jonas Mekas weaves an elegiac diary film from his 1971–72 return to Lithuania, chronicling a visit to his birthplace of Semeniškiai after decades in exile. Blending personal memory with documentary observation, the film becomes both a portrait of homecoming and a meditation on displacement, family, and the passage of time.

The Brig

The Brig · 1964

Jonas Mekas’s film captures The Living Theatre’s stage production of The Brig, an unflinching portrait of life inside a U.S. Marine Corps jail in Japan in 1957. Over the course of a single day, prisoners endure relentless drills, abuse, and dehumanization, exposing the brutality of military discipline with stark immediacy.

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections · 1990

Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections

Jonas Mekas’s intimate diary film spans 1963 to 1990, capturing Andy Warhol alongside friends and collaborators from the New York avant-garde. Featuring figures such as Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Maciunas—as well as rare footage of the Velvet Underground’s first performance—it offers a personal portrait of Warhol’s world and his intersections with art, music, and counterculture.

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

3.11 A Sense of Home Films · 2011

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

MovieAnimationDrama

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man · 1981

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

“New York plays itself, as Taylor Mead and Winifred Bryan regale in pas de deux among the trashcans and the towers. The Studiedly Goofy and the Monumentally Grand are joined in masterly pas de don’t [...] The awed couple do battle with the status quo and teach the world to dance on the head of a bin. Rice detects real dignity in Bryan and amazing grace in Mead as they essay solitary promenades through the parks, subways and streets of a wintery New York landscape. Photographed and directed by Ron Rice, edited and scored by Taylor Mead.” –Edward Leffingwell

In Between

In Between · 1978

MovieDocumentary

Footage from 1964-1968 that did not find its way into the Walden reels is joined in this classic period piece. Mostly centered in New York, it also includes travel footage and appearances by David Wise, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Smith, Shirley Clarke, Jane Holzer and more. Mel Lyman plays his banjo on the roof.

River of Fundament

River of Fundament · 2014

River of Fundament

MovieDramaFantasy

Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

42 One Dream Rush

42 One Dream Rush · 2010

42 One Dream Rush

An omnibus project bringing together acclaimed directors from around the world, each contributing a 42-second short inspired by a dream. Produced by 42 Below vodka, the collection blends surreal, poetic, and experimental visions into a mosaic of oneiric cinema.

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