Program
BARBARA FOREVER
NEWCOMER - BARBARA FOREVER
Queer cinema pioneer Barbara Hammer (1939–2019) began making films at 27 and came out as a lesbian in her early 30s: “My life has been lived in film.” The sheer abundance of film material from her life is also the substance of BARBARA FOREVER, Brydie O’Connor’s feature-length debut, which succeeds in the mammoth task of doing justice to this dazzling, charismatic personality: a pioneer of lesbian-queer self-representation “in a world where we are invisible”, a seductive lover, a filmmaker eager to experiment and take risks. Above all, there is her hunger for life. Through her films, including Dyketactics (1974), Audience (1982) and Nitrate Kisses (1992), previously unseen archival footage, Barbara’s voice-over narration and her life partner Florrie Burke as another central figure, the very temporality of life is queered: plenty of sex and intimacy, the theory of cinema of touch, the desire for artistic recognition, her relationship with her mother in an immigrant family, and the mission to pass on and share what film can do, not least in the face of her illness and death. Fans, newcomers and those returning to her work alike: let yourselves be touched by dyke poetry! (Gaby Babić)
USA 2026 by Brydie O’Connor, 103 min, documentary film, English original version with German subtitles, FSK 12
