Love, Barbara
Directed by Brydie O’Connor
A touching tribute to the pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, told through the lens and love of her partner of over 30 years.
2022 | 15 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W221301 |
SYNOPSIS
In her collection of over 100 films, pioneering experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer centered her own body, community, and love to create performative documentations of her lived experience as a lesbian. Her imprint on the art world, on women artists, and on the lesbian community is profound and indelible. However, her greatest love of all – Florrie Burke, who was her partner of over 30 years – was left largely visually unexplored in her public work. In LOVE, BARBARA, the viewer witnesses Burke’s enduring love and grief as she discovers artwork inspired by their relationship, much of it previously unseen, that Hammer left for her to find only after she was gone.
This film blends cinematic imagery and archival materials such as video letters, sketches, and writing to offer a touching tribute to Hammer. It is simultaneously a reflection on Hammer’s life and the continuance of an intimate conversation between lovers that transcends death. LOVE, BARBARA offers an artistic exploration of grief, love, sexuality, and what it takes to make a radical impact through art.
PRESS
"Love, Barbara [is] a cinematic moving collage that encapsulates the legacy of Barbara Hammer unraveling before us, and ultimately exist as a visual love letter."
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Best Documentary, Immaginaria
- WINNER Best Heartland Documentary Short, Kansas City International Film Festival
- Grand Jury Prize, Outstanding Short Documentary- Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival
- Audience Award for Best Short, Desperado Film Festival
- Honorable Mention for Short Documentary, Tallgrass Film Festival
- Shortlisted for Best Short Documentary, Woodstock Film Festival
- NewFest: The New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival
- AFI Fest
- Denver Film Festival
- Santa Barbara International Film Festival
- Maryland Film Festival
- Provincetown International Film Festival
- SCAD Savannah Film Festival
- Melbourne Queer Film Festival
- QDoc Film Festival
- Wicked Queer: Boston LGBTQ+ Film Festival
- Out On Film: Atlanta LGBTQ Film Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Brydie O’Connor
Brydie O’Connor is a Kansas-bred, NY-based filmmaker. Her award-winning documentary work focuses on women-driven and queer stories. Brydie’s most recent film LOVE, BARBARA (2021) won the Grand Jury Prize for Short Documentary at Outfest 2022 and had its New York premiere at The Museum of Modern Art in the summer of 2022. Her short documentary FRIENDS OF DOROTHY (2020) premiered in New York at DOC NYC. Brydie’s work has been supported by The Future of Film Is Female, Women Make Movies, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, and ArtsKC. Most recently, she was selected as a semifinalist for the Netflix x NewFest New Voices Filmmaker Initiative, and she is pitching her forthcoming debut feature documentary at DOC NYC Industry Roundtables 2022. Much of her work is inspired by archival histories.
Brydie’s producing credits include THE LESBIAN BAR PROJECT (Tribeca X 2022), WOMONTOWN for PBS Kansas City, and Season 7 of THE CIRCUS on Showtime. She is a graduate of The George Washington University. (12/22)
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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