Jonas Mekas at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne

Text from the Museum Page:

Museum Ludwig will be presenting the first solo exhibition in Germany by the film maker, poet and film critic Jonas Mekas (*1922 in Lithuania). After an odyssey lasting almost five years as a forced labourer in Germany, and as a displaced person after the war, Jonas Mekas arrived in 1949 in New York. Here he dedicated himself in a whole host of ways to film, not least as an event manager who opened up an increasing number of possibilities for screening the New American Cinema - before the Anthology Film Archive, which he co-founded, could at last provide a home for the avant-garde film – from Sergei Eisenstein to Carl Theodor Dreyer – as well as for the underground film and other currents from 1970 on.

The exhibition sets out to convey the broad effect Jonas Mekas has had, his passion for film, and his enduring influence on artists and film makers of different generations, and with that on the whole history of film. Using documents, publications, film programmes and posters, and films shown on monitors, the exhibition will present the complex output of this artist, curator, writer, editor, critic and co-founder of the Anthology Film Archive. An extensive film programme will include not only a representative selection from his own filmography, but also films that became known through Mekas’ personal involvement and commitment. The screen in the cinema at Museum Ludwig will thus become a part of the exhibition area on equal footing with the gallery spaces.

Go here if you want to see or download the "Happy Birthday John" film from 1972. A film about John Lennons birthday. Starring John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, etc.
You will have to see that Jonas Mekas is and was one of the best film makers ever.

Go to the exhibition if you can. They will be showing his films all month. And while you are there go upstairs to see the other exhibition about the San Francisco Art and Rock scene from the 60s. They have got all the posters you have seen so many times on the web. I can tell you they are even cooler live. By the way: while I was there I noticed the the Quicksilver Messenger Service must have been something like magicians. They are on every single poster. They seemed to have played every festival in San Francisco.