The filmmaker Barbara Hammer, a true pathfinder in the realm of queer aesthetics, experimental filmmaking and so much more, died in 2019 at the age of 79, having made dozens of films. Judging by the footage seen in documentary Barbara Forever of her life partner and executor Florrie Burke sifting through endless boxes and film cans, it would seem Hammer was perhaps also, understandably, one of those people who find it hard to throw anything out.
Thank goodness, because her archive, now kept at Yale University, forms the basis of this lusty, vibrant and fittingly multi-textured bio-doc that pays fulsome tribute to Hammer’s shapeshifting, once undervalued but now increasingly revered talent.
Barbara Forever
The Bottom Line
A loving tribute to a phenomenal talent.
