Barbara Forever
Avant-garde lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer’s life and pioneering work take centre stage in this archive-driven tribute to a queer cinema icon.
Fearless Los Angeles–born artist Barbara Hammer was 30 years old and married to a man when she first heard the word “lesbian”. This life-changing discovery would, in turn, lead to the expansion of the vocabulary of queer cinema itself. Across her prolific career from her groundbreaking 1974 short Dyketactics through to her feature-length breakout Nitrate Kisses (MIFF 1993) and beyond – works variously composed of frankly sensual depictions of friends and lovers and cinematic images from a bygone era – Hammer’s filmography was as playful as it was relentless in decentring the heterosexual gaze.
Brydie O’Connor’s energising tribute to this LGBTQIA+ icon artfully weaves together footage from the director’s personal archive with clips from her films, all accompanied by commentary from Hammer herself – with some sections recorded shortly before her passing in 2019 – as well as from Florrie Burke, the filmmaker’s widow. Winner of a Teddy Award at the 2026 Berlinale along with a prize for editing at Sundance, Barbara Forever looks to the future of queer filmmaking by honouring one of its greatest revolutionaries.
“This is the story of a feminism, a lesbianism, an experimental cinema, that expands far beyond what its pioneers could have initially imagined.” – IndieWire
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
You might also like ...
Tabea Blumenschein stars as the leather-clad lesbian pirate Madame X, who promises a new way of life to the brave women who dare to join her crew.
In this striking animation set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, a queer coyote breaks the wall of silence with her mother nine years after her coming out.
Bestselling Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Mary Oliver was famously private; a loving look at her one wild and precious life sheds new light on her cherished work.