BARBARA FOREVER Trailer: Sundance-Winning Documentary Pays Tribute to a Queer Filmmaking Icon
The life and career of lesbian avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Hammer is the subject of a kaleidoscopic exploration in director Byrdie O’Connor’s documentary, Barbara Forever. It premiered at this year’s Sundance, where it won the Joshua Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary competition. It also made waves at Berlinale where it won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary. With Kristen Stewart and Killer Films’ Christine Vachon on board as executive producers, Strand Releasing will open the film at NYC’s Film Forum on September 4, before expanding to further cities.
Chris Reed wrote in his Sundance review, “With copious footage of Hammer herself—she was an obsessive documenter of her own life—Barbara Forever offers an intimate look back at what made Hammer tick, though the line between public and private personas remains blurry. This is by Hammer’s own design, in a way, since she was always as much behind as in front of the camera. Still, it’s hard not to see her as something of a construct, at times, and to wish that O’Connor could peel back just one more layer to find a truth not refracted by the lens. Who would she be without the cinematic gaze? It’s a fitting conundrum to ponder for a director of Hammer’s considerable stature.”
As the official synopsis reads:
Pioneering queer avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939–2019) broke barriers by centering frank lesbian sexuality and pleasure in an expansive body of beautiful, poetic, personal work. In Barbara Forever—constructed largely from Hammer’s own archive spanning five decades, alongside audio diaries and present-day conversations with her longtime partner, Florrie Burke—director Brydie O’Connor crafts a loving portrait of a force of nature while accompanying her through her final years and creative processes.
Check out the trailer below.
