Having entered the New York underground in the 1960s while still a teenager, filmmaker Barbara Rubin (1945-80) quickly became one of its key figures. Her pioneering 1963 double-projection film Christmas on Earth, featuring painted and masked performers engaging in a variety of gay and straight sexual acts, was both aesthetically innovative and sexually provocative. She worked regularly with Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol, introduced Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg, and connected Warhol with The Velvet Underground. 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This special 80th issue of the magazine Film Culture features her previously unpublished letters to Mekas.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 and Rubin’s script, Christmas on Earth Continued, a planned sequel to her notorious film.