Barney's Wall: A Portrait of a Game Changer

For over 100 years, an act of Congress allowed the U.S. Postmaster General to seize and ban books, films, and plays he deemed “obscene”. That would be the equivalent today of a government ban on streaming Drake, “Fifty Shades of Gray”, “Game of Thrones”, or Amy Schumer.

“Barney’s Wall: Portrait of A Game Changer” is a 73-minute documentary that 

tells the story of the volcanic mid-century civil rights activist, publisher, and free speech warrior BARNEY ROSSET, whose six years of grueling legal battles resulted in the 1964 Supreme Court ruling that the right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without government interference or regulation.

Ignoring political and sexual taboos, Rosset defiantly published the most radical and original “Underground” voices of the 60s and 70s —  among them William S. Burroughs, Malcolm X, Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac, Hubert Selby Jr., Henry Miller, and Samuel Beckett.

Rosset's iconic Grove Press and Evergreen Review journal were the era’s Instagram, BuzzFeed, Facebook and Twitter for millions of young readers. Their writers, filmmakers and artists propelled the 60’s counterculture movement, opening the door to today’s popular culture. 

“Barney’s Wall” has screened at U.S. and international film festivals, cultural and educational centers, schools, and symposiums — in tandem with high-profile panels of artists and thinkers who further discussion of the dangers to a tolerant and diverse culture when limits are placed on freedom of artistic expression.

Donations and grants will support continuing outreach to schools, colleges, libraries, cultural centers, and conferences.

“Who knows if the limits have been reached?” Barney Rosset told Time magazine in 1965. “Just because the scientists split the atom, did they sit back and say, ‘Well, that’s it’?”