LitFilm 2025: Outrider: Anne Waldman & Virtual Reading by Waldman

Documentary, dir. by Alystyre Julian 
U.S., 2025, 93 min 

Alystyre Julian’s Outrider is a portal into fast-speaking poet Anne Waldman and her decades spent gathering kindred spirits. In immersive jaunts of collaboration, the first feature-length portrait of Waldman traces the poet’s century-crossing lineage of artistic and liberatory practices, from the downtown New York scene and the founding of the dynamic Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church; to the Naropa University Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics; to Big Sur, Mexico City, Morocco, and onward.

Guided by ancestors of the Beat generation and poetic kinships with radical female musicians—Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Cecilia Vicuña, Meredith Monk—Waldman embodies her role as a visionary word-worker and transcendent presence laboring in defense of community and craft. Through readings, in song, and in conversation, Outrider celebrates Waldman as an inimitable creative and social force dedicated to the propulsion of the artistic imagination and the close ties which form in its wake. The film will be accompanied with a reading by Anne Waldman on Zoom.

All screenings are free but require reservations. Times subject to change. For the full LitFilm roster, go here.