(1966, 4 min)

A small port in South of France, a lighthouse, the sea, shot from just before the sunrise until just after the sunset, all day long, frame by frame, a frame or two every second or every few minutes.

(1982, 35 min) Music: Velvet Underground, recorded in 1966.

Opening segment taped at the Dom at the public performance with Nico.

End section: Mass for Andy Warhol at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The film is made up of my film diaries related to Andy Warhol from the years 1965–82. Locations are New York and Montauk: The Factory, house of George Maciunas, village gate, psychiatrist’s convention, home of Stephen Shore, Warhol Estate, Montauk, etc.

The “cast” includes Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Barbara Rubin, Tuli Kupferberg, Peter Orlovsky, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, George Maciunas, Vincent Friemont, Henry Geldzahler, Paul Morrissey, Karen Lerner, Jay Lerner, Peter Beard, John Kennedy Jr., Lee Radziwill, Tina Radziwill, Anthony Radziwill, D’Allessandro, Caroline Kennedy, Mick Jagger, Jade Jagger and many others.

Completed in June, 1990.

(1966, 12 min)

Ringling Bros., filmed in three sessions (three-ring circus), with no post-editing of opticals, five rolls strung together as they came out of a camera. Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band prepared the soundtrack. Film can also be watched with soundtrack turned off (if you’re a “purist,” which I’m not).

(1996, 24 min). [On] October 9, 1972, an exhibition of John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s art, designed by the Father of Fluxus movement, George Maciunas, opened at the Syracuse Museum of Art (curated by David Ross, presently director of the Whitney Museum). Same day an unusual group of John’s and Yoko’s friends, including Ringo, Allen Ginsberg and many others gathered to celebrate John’s birthday. This film is a visual and audio record of that event.

That period when I was in New York, close to the Anthology [Film Archives], gave me an immense sense of freedom and openness. For me it is difficult to talk about Jonas without speaking about the atmosphere, the group who was around him: dancers and painters and theatre people like Richard Foreman. It was a new world, a new way at looking.

I arrived in New York when I was 21. Babette Mangolte [cinematographer and Akerman’s frequent collaborator] introduced me to all these people – it was a revelation and indeed brought me to another space, another kind of viewing art, cinema and so on. Jonas was a kind of centre, not only because he had the Anthology, but by his attitude. I remember coming to show him my first film, Saute ma ville, and how encouraging he was.

Jonas Mekas is an international treasure – but a very difficult man to categorize. He is a remarkable artist and filmmaker, a poet, a cultural anthropologist, preservationist, curator, visual diarist, literary editor, provocateur – and an irrepressible inspiration.

His influence is also impossible to summarize. I’ll just say that for me this man’s work, his mind and his invaluable perspective continue to open up and feed my own. For Jonas, forms are fluid and seemingly interchangeable, yet he approaches each one with a particular kind of wonder and enthusiasm. I can only hope that I might carry, to some small degree, his beautiful influence and love of the process of expression in my own mind, work and perspectives.