This side of Paradise, fragments of an unfinished biography

After the death of John F. Kennedy, Jackie wanted to give her children something to distract them. She thought about buying a film camera. Peter Beard, who was giving John Jr and Caroline art history lessons at the time, suggested to Jackie that she asked Jonas Mekas for this project. So, in the late Sixties and early Seventies, Mekas spent several summers with the Kennedy family. Cinema was the binding factor in their friendship.The images in this film were almost all shot in the house that they rented from Andy Warhol in those days. Warhol himself was also regularly present. It was, according to Mekas, 'a period filled with joy, happiness and a feast of friendship'.The film has the intimacy of a home movie. It provides an unusual and harrowing look at this mythical family, showing them as normal Americans and ordinary people.