Barbara Forever

Barbara Hammer was inspired to make experimental films about her personal life after seeing Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon at film school in the early 1970s. Once she came out as a lesbian, aged 30, she "took off on a motorcycle with a super-8 camera" and in 1974 filmed Dyketactics, widely considered to be one of the first lesbian films.

Going on to make over 90 films across her fifty-year career, she became a guiding star for feminists, lesbians and experimental filmmakers the world over.

This archive-driven documentary by filmmaker Brydie O'Connor won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at Sundance and the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at Berlinale. Produced by Christine Vachon, Barbara Forever collages together thirty years of Barbara's own footage, forming an electric portrait of this queer cinema icon and a tribute to the value of making art of one's own life.