MUFFTix: Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground at Hot Docs 2018

Still from Barbara Rubin's short film.

It's no secret that women are often sidelined in history, overshadowed by their male counterparts or just not even talked about at all. We started listing examples but realized we could go on and on and on and...you get the idea. Instead, let's just get right to it: Barbara Rubin. You may not know who she is (we admittedly didn't), but you should. Enter Chuck Smith's Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground. Norman Wilner says in NOW that the film "makes a pretty good argument that [Barbara Rubin is] the single most important person in American culture in the early 60s." So, really, it's high time that we all know her.

The 29-minute experimental film Christmas on Earth caused a sensation when it first screened in New York City in 1964. Its orgy scenes, double projections and overlapping images shattered artistic conventions and announced a powerful new voice in the city's underground film scene. All the more remarkable, that vision belonged to a teenager, 18-year-old Barbara Rubin. A Zelig of the '60s, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan to Kabbalah and bewitched Allen Ginsberg. The same unbridled creativity that inspired her to make films when women simply didn't, saw her breach yet another male domain, Orthodox Judaism, before her mysterious death at 35. Lifelong friend Jonas Mekas saved all her letters, creating a rich archive that filmmaker Chuck Smith carefully sculpts into this fascinating portrait of a nearly forgotten artist. An avante-garde maverick, a rebel in a man's world, Barbara Rubin regains her rightful place in film history.

Barbara Rubin with Bob Dylan | Nat Finkelstein

This film looks absolutely fascinating and we want you to see it! Watch the trailer for Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground and scroll down for a chance to win a pair of tickets to the Wednesday May 2 at 9:45PM screening. We'll be drawing 3 winners on Monday April 30!