Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker?

Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker? is the first film to explore the outrageous life and times of the banned American writer, Kathy Acker, a woman who lived her life without boundaries. Named one of Americaʼs original “outlaw writers” by the New York Times, Acker created challenging and sexually graphic fiction rooted in the same New York underground scene which inspired the worldwide punk movement.

This first film, conceived & directed by the young Austrian Artist, Barbara Caspar, and co- written with English filmmaker Andrew Standen-Raz, covers every aspect of Acker's life, from her wild early years in New York City to her untimely death in Tijuana, Mexico, of breast cancer in 1997. Caspar's film is a multi-layered, artistic tour de force--a sophisticated mix of animations, graphic text and filmed reenactments of scenes from Acker's bestseller "Blood & Guts in High School", shot in NYC, as well as a host of interviews with leading figures of the time connected with Kathy, including William Burroughs, Kathleen Hanna & Bikini Kill, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Barney Rosset and Ira Silverberg.