Parity Pipeline

Parity Pipeline

Inside the Beauty Bubble

Directed by Cheri Gaulke and Cheryl Bookout

INSIDE THE BEAUTY BUBBLE takes you into a pastel dreamland of 3,000 vintage beauty artifacts as you follow "America's hairstorian," stylist, collector, artist, and musician Jeff Hafler, as he struggles to keep his roadside attraction afloat during a year that changes his life and the lives of his husband and son.

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
  • SCREENINGS
  • AWARDS
  • CREDITS
  • GALLERY

Genre

Synopsis

INSIDE THE BEAUTY BUBBLE is a short documentary film about an eccentric and renowned collector of hair artifacts fighting to keep his desert dreams alive. The Beauty Bubble Salon & Museum in Joshua Tree is the magical and kitsch-filled brainchild of Jeff Hafler. The film covers a year in the life of Jeff and his roadside attraction as they face lockdowns, protests and massive societal change. It is a film about family, fabulousness and folk art, a film that reminds us it’s sometimes the strong people on the margins that hold a community together.

Bio

Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles affiliated with the Woman’s Building working in film and visual art. Her films have screened in national and international film festivals and won numerous awards. Gaulke’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and in settings all over the world including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples. In her almost 50-year career, Gaulke has directed, written, produced and edited 29 media works which include documentaries, personal narratives, experimental, and video installations. Recent films include GLORIA’S CALL about women artists of surrealism (Best Documentary at Ann Arbor Film Festival), MISS ALMA THOMAS: A LIFE IN COLOR about an under-recognized African-American artist (traveling with a museum retrospective exhibition), and INSIDE THE BEAUTY BUBBLE about the owner of a roadside attraction in Joshua Tree California (numerous audience and other festival awards). Gaulke has received artist fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles and California Community Foundation. In 2003, her oral history was inducted into the collection “Out of the Seventies: L.A. Women in Film and Video” at UCLA Film and Television Archives. She is the 2023 recipient of The Edison Innovation Award presented to a filmmaker whose distinguished body of work advances the mission and legacy

Screening History

Premiere - American Documentary and Animation Film Festival 2022

Frameline 2022

Nevada City Film Festival 2022

Dances with Films 2022

Cleveland International Film Festival 2023

Awards History

Heart of Gold Award - Nevada City Film Festival 2022

Audience Award - San Luis Obispo Film Festival 2022

Audience Award - Dances with Films 2022

Credits

Subject - Jeff Hafler

Cinematographer - Nick Lieberman

Editor - Susan Metzger