Please join us for a launch event to mark the publication of Film Culture 80: The Legend of Barbara Rubin, published by Spector Books. The program will include a conversation by experimental filmmaker & editor in chief Jonas Mekas with project editor Marc Siegel.

Barbara Rubin (1945-1980) is a little known, but highly important figure in the internationalization of the avant-garde. Having entered the New York Underground in the 1960s while still a teenager, she quickly became one of its key figures. Her pioneering 1963 double-projection film Christmas on Earth was both sexually provocative and aesthetically innovative. She worked regularly with Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol, introduced Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg, and connected Warhol with The Velvet Underground. She played an informal role encouraging the development of film cooperatives in London and Paris. During an intense period of activity and travel, Rubin wrote passionate letters about film and the Underground to Mekas. This special 80th issue of the magazine Film Culture features her previously unpublished letters to Mekas. It also includes interviews, photographs and Rubin’s script, Christmas on Earth Continued, a planned sequel to her notorious film.

Jonas Mekas is a filmmaker and artist. Together with his brother Adolfas he founded the Film Culture magazine, which published 79 issues between 1955 and 1996. Film Culture 80: The Legend of Barbara Rubin is published in conjunction with the exhibition and festival Edit Film Culture!, a festival about Film Culture magazine at silent green Kulturquartier, Berlin (6–22 July 2018). Edit Film Culture! is a project by silent green Film Feld Forschung gGmbH in collaboration with Jonas Mekas / Anthology Film Archives, Arsenal–Institute for Film and Video Art e.V., SAVVY Contemporary e.V., Harun Farocki Institut, Lithuanian Culture Institute and Spector Books. Curatorial team: Christian Hiller (artistic direction), Bettina Ellerkamp, Jörg Heitmann, Daniela Kinateder, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Marc Siegel. www.editfilmculture.net

Film Culture 80: The Legend of Barbara Rubin Editor-in-chief: Jonas Mekas Editors of this issue: Chuck Smith, Charity Coleman, Christian Hiller, Anne König, Sebastian Mekas, Sarai Meyron, and Marc Siegel Texts: John Cavanaugh, Richard Foreman, Christian Hiller, Jonas Mekas, Ara Osterweil, Barbara Rubin, Marc Siegel, Chuck Smith, Amy Taubin Publisher: Spector Books and silent green Film Feld Forschung gGmbH Graphic design: Franziska Bauer, Tania Prill 216 pp., English, 50 black-white and 40 color images ISBN 978-3-95905-202-3 $ 35.00