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SLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES Jonas Mekas, Sleepless Nights Stories, USA, 2011, 114 min<\/strong> Also Screening: Tuesday 18 October 2011, at 9pm, VUE3 SLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES This film originated from my readings of the One Thousand and One Nights. But unlike the Arabian tales, my stories are all from real life, though at times they too wander into somewhere else, beyond the everyday routine reality. There are some twenty-five different stories in my movie. Their protagonists are all my good friends and I myself am an inseparable part of the stories. The storyteller of the Arabian Nights was also part of his or her tales. Some of the people in the movie you\u2019ll recognize, some not. The fact that some of them you\u2019ll recognize has no bearing on the stories: after all, we all recognize John Wayne or Annette Bening, but in their stories they are no longer the people we know. The subjects of the stories cover a wide range of emotions, geographies, personal anxieties, anecdotes. These are not very big stories, not for the Big Screen: these are all personal big stories \u2026 And yes, you\u2019ll also find some provocations \u2026 But that\u2019s me, one \u2018me\u2019 of many. The very question \u2018What is a story?\u2019 is a provocative question. (Jonas Mekas)<\/p>\n
\nSaturday 22 October 2011, at 9pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank NFT3<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nJonas Mekas\u2019 opening confession that he suffers from insomnia will come as no surprise to anyone aware of his singular contribution to cinema. Over 50 years he has established and promoted a viable culture for truly independent and avant-garde filmmaking, and his recent acceptance by the art world has brought a long overdue wave of attention and success. Sleepless Nights Stories<\/em> is the latest in the series of long-form diary films that Mekas has been making since his arrival in the USA in 1949. Eating, drinking, singing and dancing with friends, the tireless octogenarian is full of life and wonder, casually weaving together contemporary folk tales collected during travels across the globe. Marina Abramovic fantasizes about domesticity, Lee Stringer recounts an episode from his crack-addicted past, and the protagonist toasts the \u2018working class voice\u2019 of Amy Winehouse. Marina Abramovic, Bj\u00f6rk, Harmony Korine and Patti Smith also appear. Treating significant and inconsequential moments with equal import, Mekas\u2019 modern day saga presents the first episodes from his ambitious \u20181001 Nights\u2019 project. (Mark Webber)<\/p>\n
\n& Thursday 20 October 2011, at 7pm, BFI Studio<\/em><\/p>\nPROGRAMME NOTES<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Saturday 22 October 2011, at 9pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank NFT3
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\nSLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES
\nJonas Mekas, USA, 2011, video, colour, sound, 114 min
\n<\/strong>For two hours we stroll with Jonas Mekas through New York nights, through apartments, studios, backstage rooms, galleries, bars and clubs. We meet old acquaintances like Ken and Flo Jacobs, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramovi?, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Pip Chodorov, friends, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and we also make many new acquaintances. The father of the diary film begins a film with the words \u2018I can\u2019t sleep\u2019. Who hasn\u2019t been in this situation? Sleepy and yet wide awake at the same time, you find yourself in the world of those exhausted from the day\u2019s exertions; the drunk, the relaxed, the dancing, the brooding, the mourning, the pensive, the partiers. In this film Mekas dives into a time vacuum \u2026 and it becomes increasingly unclear whether we really did get up and go out, whether what we\u2019re seeing are remnants of the day that we\u2019re remembering, or remnants of films by one of the greatest avant-garde filmmakers whose life wrote film history. (Berlinale)<\/p>\n