Eva Hesse’s life was a short but triumphant one. Before her death from a brain tumor in her thirties, she created a trailblazing body of work that continues to engage audiences and influence artists worldwide. In her first documentary film “Eva Hesse,” Marcie Begleiter brings to the screen the artist’s story—her profound dedication to her work, her talented circle of friends, her relationships with her family, and her indomitable courage and keen sense of the absurd.

Begleiter reveals how she first became engaged with Hesse’s work and later pored over 1200 pages of journal entries to find the narrative and voice for the film. She takes us behind the scenes to tell us about the interviews she conducted, the choice of actress Selma Blair (“Anger Management” and “Hellboy”) for Hesse’s voice, and how she managed to capture the heady milieu of the art world in the 1960s.