Barbara HAMMER

(1939-2019)
Nationality: American

Barbara Hammer was born in Hollywood, California. She was a visual artist who worked primarily in film and video, installation, photography and performance. She made over 80 moving image works in a career that spanned 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema.
Her experimental films of the 1970s often dealt with taboo subjects such as menstruation, female orgasm and lesbian sexuality. In the 80s she used optical printing to explore perception and the fragility of 16mm film life itself. OPTIC NERVE (1985) and ENDANGERED (1988) were selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials (’85,’89). Her documentaries tell the stories of marginalized peoples who have been hidden from history and are often essay films that are multi-leveled and engage audiences viscerally and intellectually with the goal of activating them to make social change. NITRATE KISSES (1992) was chosen for the 1993 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial. Hammer was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Fall 2005 at the Bratislava Academy of Art and Design, Slovakia; she received the first Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award in October 2006 from New York Women in Film and Television; and the Women In Film Award 2006 from the St. Louis International Film Festival. In February 2007, she was awarded a tribute and retrospective at the Chinese Cultural University Digital Imaging Center in Taipei, Taiwan sponsored by Women Make Waves Film Festival. In April 2008, Diving Women of Jeju-do premiered at the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival where Hammer presented followed by a trip to Beijing where she showed her 1970 lesbian films to a Feminist Seminar and at a new LGTQI Center. The Leo Award from the Flaherty Film Seminar was presented to her in 2008 for making a significant contribution to documentary film.
Hammer’s experimental documentary film on cancer and hope, A HORSE IS NOT A METAPHOR, premiered in June, 2008 at the 32nd Frameline International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in San Francisco and in February, 2009 at DocFortnight at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. It won the Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the 2009 Berlinale and Second Prize at the Black Maria Film Festival. It was selected for Punta de Vista Film Festival in Bilbao, Spain; the Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Italy; the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund/Koln, and the Festival de Films des Femmes Creteil among others.
In March 2010 her book, Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life published by The Feminist Press at the City University of New York was launched in a performance at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York. A 2010 book tour included The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California; The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; the British Film Institute in London, England; the Experimental Film Congress in Toronto, Canada; the University of California at San Diego Visual Arts Department; the San Francisco Cinematheque Crossroads Festival; the Northwest Film Center at the Portland Art Museum, and the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle, Washington.

29 MOVIES IN DISTRIBUTION

GENERATIONS
2010 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 30' 00 / 100 € or 94 €
distribution: 16mm
RESISTING PARADISE
2003 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 80' 00 / 368 €
distribution: 16mm or Digital file on USB stick
HISTORY LESSONS
2000 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 70' 00 / 210 €
distribution: 16mm
NITRATE KISSES
1992 / 16mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 67' 00 / 178 €
distribution: 16mm or DCP on server or DCP on USB stick or Digital file on USB stick
VITAL SIGNS
1991 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 10' 00 / 38 €
distribution: Digital file on server
SANCTUS
1990 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 19' 00 / 64 €
distribution: 16mm
ENDANGERED
1988 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 18' 00 / 62 €
distribution: 16mm
NO NO NOOKY T.V.
1987 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 12' 00 / 51 €
distribution: 16mm
PLACE MATTES
1987 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 8' 00 / 30 €
distribution: 16mm
OPTIC NERVE
1985 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 16' 00 / 54 €
distribution: 16mm
TOURIST
1985 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 4' 00 / 22 €
distribution: 16mm
BENT TIME
1984 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 22' 00 / 74 €
distribution: 16mm
DOLL HOUSE
1984 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 3' 00 / 18 €
distribution: 16mm
SEE WHAT YOU HEAR WHAT YOU SEE
1983 / 16mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 3' 00 / 25 €
distribution: 16mm
POND AND WATERFALL
1982 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 15' 00 / 50 €
distribution: 16mm
AREQUIPA
1981 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 12' 00 / 41 €
distribution: 16mm
CLASSIC LESBIAN FILMS: SYNC TOUCH
1981 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 12' 00 / 41 €
distribution: 16mm
POOLS
1981 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 6' 00 / 42 €
distribution: 16mm
CLASSIC LESBIAN FILMS: OUR TRIP
1980 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 4' 00 / 22 €
distribution: 16mm
CLASSIC LESBIAN FILMS: DOUBLE STRENGTH
1978 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 16' 00 / 54 €
distribution: 16mm or Digital file on server
HAIRCUT
1978 / 16mm / color / silent / 4' 40 / 36 €
distribution: 16mm
MOON GODDESS
1976 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 15' 00 / 49 €
distribution: 16mm
MULTIPLE ORGASM
1976 / 16mm / color / silent / single screen / 6' 00 / 42 €
distribution: 16mm
WOMEN I LOVE
1976 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 22' 39 / 96 €
distribution: 16mm
CLASSIC LESBIAN FILMS: DYKETACTICS
1974 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 4' 00 / 24 €
distribution: Digital file on server
MENSES
1974 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 4' 00 / 28 €
distribution: 16mm
I WAS/I AM
1973 / 16mm / b&w / sound / single screen / 6' 30 / 39 €
distribution: 16mm
SISTERS!
1973 / 16mm / color-b&w / sound / single screen / 8' 00 / 52 €
distribution: 16mm
X
1973 / 16mm / color / sound / single screen / 9' 00 / 30 €
distribution: 16mm