Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1945, Barbara McCullough is a director, producer and specialist in visual effects. Experimental cinema appealed to her for its possibility of expressing an essence of the African-American community through a new dimension focused on ancestral mysticism, and wrapped in involving visual textures. Her work also contributed to showing another side to a community often covered by stereotypical perceptions in cinema.

She is associated with the movement of L.A. Rebellion, also known as ‘Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers’: a generation of filmmakers from the 60s to the 80s of UCLA, creators of a revolutionary Black Cinema diverging from Hollywood conventions and attentive to the real african-american lived experiences.  Her filmography includes Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification (1979), about purging the contamination of suburban spaces into the african-american woman’s body; Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflection on Ritual Space  (1981), a reflection on ritualistic space by african-american female criatives; the short films Fragments (1980) and The World Saxophone Quartet (1980) and the documentary Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot (2017).  

McCulloughs’ projects have been exhibited in venues like the Tate Modern Museum, British Film Institute, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum, Pan African Film Festival and other international spaces. While still interested in themes like the African Diaspora, Black Feminism and filming as an aeshtetic and spiritual process, she is also Chair for the Department of Visual Effect at the Savannah College of Art and Design.