Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

Shot when she was just 18, Barbara Rubin’s orgiastic Christmas on Earth (1964) shocked NYC's thriving underground film community. A mythical Zelig of the Sixties, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan to the Kabbalah, and Allen Ginsberg to life on a farm. For years, 95-year-old film-maker Jonas Mekas (1922‒2019) saved all of Barbara’s letters and cherished her memory. Working with Mekas’s footage and other rare footage from the 1960s, the documentary reveals the impact that Barbara Rubin had on an underground world that was dominated by men, and reveals how and why one of the freest spirits of the sixties disappeared into legend. It’s a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking woman who truly believed that film could change the world.

Introduction by Piibe Kolka