Films

Following is a selection of 92 films created in Hammer's career, which surpassed 5 decades.
See Also: Films made in collaboration with Barbara Hammer »

EVIDENTIARY BODIES

2018, 9:30 min, color, sound, three-channel HD video

"...The work is experienced and perceived through the performer’s body as we breathe together remembering that cancer is not a 'battle,' cancer is a disease..." — Barbara Hammer

LESBIAN WHALE

2015, 6:35 min, color, sound, HD video

Lesbian Whale is a video animation of Hammer’s early notebook drawings set to a sound track of commentary by the artist’s friends and peers.

WELCOME TO THIS HOUSE

2015, HD video, color/B&W/sound by Joan La Barbara, 79 min.

Feature documentary film on the homes and loves of poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), about life in the shadows, and the anxiety of art making without full self-disclosure. 

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MAYA DEREN’S SINK

2011, HD video, color/B&W/sound by Meredith Monk, 30 min.

Maya Deren’s Sink explores Deren’s concepts of space, time and form through visits and projections filmed in her LA and NY homes.

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GENERATIONS

2010, 30 min., 16mm

Generations is a film about mentoring and passing on the tradition of personal experimental filmmaking.

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A HORSE IS NOT A METAPHOR

2008, DVD, color/B&W/sound by Meredith Monk, 30 min.

The filmmaker, fighting ovarian cancer, stage 3, returns to her experimental roots, in a multilayered film of numerous chemotherapy sessions with images of light and movement that take her far from the hospital bed.

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DIVING WOMEN OF JEJU-DO

2007, DVD/video, color/B&W/sound, 30 min.

This ancient woman’s tradition is about to die.

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LOVER OTHER

2006, video, color & B&W/sound, 55 min.

1920’s Surrealist artists Claude Cahun and marcel Moore come to life in this hybrid documentary.

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RESISTING PARADISE

2003, 16mm film, color/B&S/sound, 80 min.

Featuring captivating interviews with former Resistance workers Lisa Fittko (who smuggled Walter Benjamin out of France), Marie-Ange Allibert, and Matisse’s grandchildren, rare archival footage, and lush cinematography, Resisting Paradise is a compelling look at the intersection of art and life in complex times.

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OUR GRIEF IS NOT A CRY FOR WAR

2001, 3:36 min, color, sound

Hammer documents a demonstration and, in so doing, makes her own contribution to the national post–September 11 dialogue.

MY BABUSHKA: SEARCHING UKRAINIAN IDENTITIES

2001, video, 53 min., color/sound.

Documentary centering on the questions of civil liberties and cultural differences in a society beginning to open as one woman searches for her own ethnic roots, identity and family history in Ukraine.

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HISTORY LESSONS

2000, 16mm film, 66 min, color/sound.

In this wonderfully irreverent yet empowering film, Barbara Hammer traces lesbian history by presenting an extraordinary array of archival footage – and then playfully manipulates it to make it seem as though lesbians were everywhere.

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DEVOTION

2000, video, 84 min.

Devotion investigates the extremely complex and hierarchical relationships among a committed group of Japanese filmmakers who dedicated up to 30 years of their lives making films for one man-Ogawa Shinsuke.

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THE FEMALE CLOSET

1998, 60 minutes, color, sound, 1998

The Female Closet is documentary that uses archival photographs, home movies, interviews, and other visual materials to explore the closeted lesbian histories of artists Alice Austen, Hannah Höch and Nicole Eisenman.

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BLUE FILM NO. 6: LOVE IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

1998, 3:06 min, color, silent, 16 mm film on video

TENDER FICTIONS

1995, 16mm film, 58 min, color/sound.

Pioneer lesbian-feminist filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, constructs an autobiography before someone does it for her in this post-postmodern sequel to her award-winning documentary Nitrate Kisses.

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OUT IN SOUTH AFRICA

1994, video, color/sound, 51 min.

A documentary about a country in the state of transition; specifically of lesbians and gays, black and white, Indian and Asian, from townships, cities and rural areas who speak of their lives and desires as homosexuals in post-apartheid South Africa.

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SHIRLEY TEMPLE AND ME

1993, 3 min, color, sound

SAVE SEX

1993, 1 min., color, sound

NITRATE KISSES

1992, 16 mm film, 67 min, B&W/sound.

Barbara Hammer's first feature film weaves striking images of four gay and lesbian couples with footage of an unearthed forbidden and invisible history.

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VITAL SIGNS

1991, 9:41 min, b&w and color, sound, 16 mm film on video

"With so many of my friends and family dying and not knowing what to do with my grief, I turned to historic narratives of death." — Barbara Hammer

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DR. WATSON’S X-RAYS

1991, 21:41 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

SANCTUS

1990, 16mm film, Color & B/W, Sound by Neil B. Rolnick, 19 min.

Sanctus portrays a body in need of protection on a polluted planet where immune system disorders proliferate.

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STILL POINT

1989, 9:14 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

Still Point whirls around a point of centeredness as four screens of home and homelessness, travel and weather, architecture and sports signify the constant movement and haste of late twentieth century life.

ENDANGERED

1988, 18:02 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

"...In her hands, the transformation of film into a poetic and avant garde art form comes about through the direct manipulation of celluloid.” – John Hanhardt, Biennial Exhibition Catalogue, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1989.

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TWO BAD DAUGHTERS

1988, 12:21 min, B&W and color, sound

"...The 'Bad Daughters' reject obedience to the Father in favor of the impish anarchy of self-possession." — Steve Seid, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

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T.V. TART

1988, Video, Color, Sound, 12 min. (Performance & film)

BEDTIME STORIES I, II, III

1988, 33:00 min, color, sound

Three highly intellectual, highly sexual, visually playful digital works, charged with humour and political power. Hammer plays with the tools of digital processing mixing up the ‘straight love story’ by queering love and seduction through pixels gone astray.

PLACE MATTES

1987, 7:36 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

Traveling mattes of the artist's torso, limbs, and extremities in Puget Sound, Yosemite and the Yucatan. Her attempt to "touch" nature is removed and blocked between figure and ground setups by the optical printer's flatness of planes.

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NO NO NOOKY T.V.

1987, 16mm, color and B&W, sound, 12 min.

Using a 16mm Bolex and Amiga computer, Hammer creates a witty and stunning film about how women view their sexuality versus the way male images of women and sex are perceived. The impact of technology on sexuality and emotion and the sensual self is explored through computer language juxtaposed with everyday colloquial language of sex.

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SNOW JOB: THE MEDIA HYSTERIA OF AIDS

1986, 7:42 min, color, sound

Barbara Hammer made a snow storm of newspaper clippings to show what a 'snow job' the media was making of AIDs.

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OPTIC NERVE

1985, 16mm film, Color/Sound by Helen Thorington, 16min.

A powerful personal reflection on family and aging. Hammer employs filmed footage which, through optical printing and editing, is layered and manipulated to create a compelling meditation on her visit to her grandmother in a nursing home.

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HOT FLASH

1985, Video, Color/Sound, 17 min.

A Collection of four films by Barbara Hammer spanning the career of this exciting filmmaker.

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WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR? A NEW YORK SUBWAY TAPE

1985, 12:39 min, color, sound

Would You Like to Meet Your Neighbor? A New York City Subway Tape finds Barbara Hammer (wearing a mask made of subway maps) conducting gonzo interviews with subway riders on desire and sexuality.

DOLL HOUSE

1984, 16 mm film, Color/Sound, 4 min.

TOURIST

1984, 2:44 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

The fleeting spectacle is a series of imaginative possessions, a conquest through the gaze accented by the shots fired on the video arcade game soundtrack.

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PARISIAN BLINDS

1984, 6:07, color, silent, 16 mm film on video

A film investigating the nature of spectator perception in an unfamiliar environment. Manipulating the movement of the film direction on the screen much like a camera shutter, Hammer questions the perceptual experience of mass tourism as the Bâteau Mouche endlessly circles the île de la Cité.

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PEARL DIVER

1984, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 6 min.

BENT TIME

1983, 16mm film, Color/Sound by Pauline Oliveros, 21 min.

A film influenced by scientists who have noted that light rays curve at the outer edges of the universe leading them to theorize that time also bends.

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STONE CIRCLES

1983, 11 min, b&w and color, sound, 16 mm film on video

Stone Circles is a celebration of ancient pre-patriarchal standing stones, mounds, and circles including Stonehenge and Avesbury.

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NEW YORK LOFT

1983, 16 mm film, Color & B&W/Sound, 9 min.

"...Hammer replaces Vertov's sociopolitical kino-truths with adventures in domestic space." – Claudia Gorbman, Jump Cut

SEE WHAT YOU HEAR WHAT YOU SEE

1983, 16 mm film, B&W/Silent, 3 min. (Installation and projection)

POND AND WATERFALL

1982, 15 min., color, silent, 16 mm film on video

An underwater exploration of verdant pond growth pulling the viewer into actually being the creature actively exploring.

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AUDIENCE

1982, 32:35 min, b&w, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

Barbara Hammer takes her camera out to film the audiences at screenings of her films – some women only, some mixed – at the London Film-makers' Co-op; at the Roxie Theater, in San Francisco, during Gay Pride Week (where the audience includes fellow filmmaker Curt McDowell); at The Funnel, in Toronto; and at McGill University, in Montreal.

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SYNC TOUCH

1981, 10:07 min, sound, 16 mm film on video

"...The film explores the tactile child nature within the adult woman filmmaker, the connection between sexuality and filmmaking, and the scientific analysis of the sense of touch." — Barbara Hammer

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POOLS

1981, 6 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

"In co-making Pools with Barbara Klutinis I wanted to bring an experiential and physiological sense of the body to the members of the audience watching the film, shot in the swimming pools designed by the first woman architect to graduate from the School of Beaux Arts in Paris, Julia Morgan..." — Barbara Hammer

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AREQUIPA

1981, 16mm film, Color/Silent, 12 min.

"...Arequipa analogizes the building blocks of film (frames, color and black and white stocks, negative reversal, superimpositions) to the frames of architecture (doorways, windows, walls, corridors)..." – Kathleen Hulser, Centre Pompidou Brochure, 1985

PICTURES FOR BARBARA

1981, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 10 min.

THE LESBOS FILM

1981, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 27 min.

OUR TRIP

1980, 16mm film, Color & B&W/Sound, 4 min.

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MACHU PICCHU

1980, 16mm film, Color/Silent, 6 min.

BAMBOO XEROX

1980, 8:30 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

"...With Bamboo Xerox, I found another strategy to move my audience and break illusions... Perhaps the audience could break the illusionist ritual-or at the very least experience a different way of seeing a film." — Barbara Hammer

AVAILABLE SPACE

1979, 20 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

A film made for performance on a 360 degree rotary projection table. A woman breaks through confining architectural space, the limited space of a film frame, and the boundaries of a movie screen.

DREAM AGE

1979, 10:58 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

A 70-year-old lesbian feminist, seeing little change in the society after years of work, sends out her 40-year-old self on a journey taking her around the perimeters of the San Francisco Bay.

DOUBLE STRENGTH

1978, 14:38 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

"A poetic study of the stages of a lesbian relationship by two women performance artists from honeymoon, through struggle, to break-up, to enduring friendship. Starring Terry Sendgraff on trapeze." — Barbara Hammer

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HAIRCUT

1978, 4:40, color, silent, 16 mm film on HD video

EGGS

1978, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 10 min.

Matriarchal symbols of wholeness appear everywhere in nature, evoked by a goddess figure.

SAPPHO

1978, 16 mm film, Color/Sound, 7 min.

HOME

1978, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 12 min.

THE GREAT GODDESS

1977, 16mm film, B&W/Sound, 25 min.

MULTIPLE ORGASM

1976, 5:32 min, color, silent, 16 mm film on HD video

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WOMEN I LOVE

1976, 22:39 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

A series of cameo portraits of the filmmaker's friends and lovers intercut with a playful celebration of fruits and vegetables in nature. Culminating footage evokes a tantric painting of sexuality sustained.

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STRESS SCARS & PLEASURE WRINKLES

1976, 17:45 min, color, sound

MOON GODDESS

1976, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 15 min. Made with Gloria Churchman.

In California a young woman artist/filmmaker is led by an older female artist through the small pine forests of Mendocino and the hot desert sands of Death Valley before she is taught the lesson of creative inspiration.

SUPERDYKE MEETS MADAME X

1976, 20 mins., B&W, ¾”  tape

From the first kiss to breakup, Almy and Hammer record their relationship on a reel-to-reel ¾” tape recorder and microphone.

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JANE BRAKHAGE

1975, 16mm film, Color/Sound 9 min.

A documentary on the pioneer woman, her wisdom, philosophy and common sense: Jane Brakhage as herself is the viewpoint rather than Jane Brakhage, wife of the filmmaker, Stan Brakhage.

PSYCHOSYNTHESIS

1975, 6:05 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

"The sub-personalities of me, as baby, athlete, witch and artist are synthesized in this film of superimpositions, intensities, and color layers coming together through the powers of film." — Barbara Hammer

X

1975, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 8 min.

A profound and powerful experimental, personal film of one woman's despair, rage and exhibitionism; a baroque fugue of identity chanting growing from women's pain to a holistic, self-healing naming ritual.

SUPERDYKE

1975, 17:34 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on video

"...Superdyke...runs from mellow nature-loving to savvy urban pop, showing the thematic range of its author and the multiplicity of lesbian experience." — Juan Antonio Suarez

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DYKETACTICS

1974, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 4 min.

“Hammer’s films of the ’70s are the first made by an openly lesbian American filmmaker to explore lesbian identity, desire and sexuality though avant-garde strategies. Merging the physicality of the female body with that of the film medium, Hammer’s films remain memorable for their pioneering articulation of a lesbian aesthetic.” -Jenni Sorkin, WACK! Art & The Feminist Revolution

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MENSES

1974, 3:15 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

A wry comedy on the disagreeable aspects of menstruation, in which women act out their own dramas on a California hillside, in a supermarket, in a red-filtered ritual of mutual bonding. Menses combines both the imagery and the politics of menstruation in a fine blend of comedy and drama.

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WOMEN’S RITES

1974, 16mm, color/Sound, 8 min.

An autumnal celebration of colorful fall leaves, brooks and bathing, chanting circles and tree goddess rites.

SISTERS!

1973, 8:25 min, b&w and color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video

Combining perhaps the only footage from the first Women’s International Day march in San Francisco and rare footage of the second National Lesbian Conference at UCLA, Sisters! is a joyous and vital landmark in feminist, queer, and lesbian filmmaking.

A GAY DAY

1973, 16mm film, Color/Sound, 3 min.

I WAS/I AM

1973, 5:44 min, b&w, sound, 16 mm film on video

YELLOW HAMMER

1973, 6:16 min, color, silent, 8mm film on video

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SONG OF THE KLINKING KUP

1973, S8mm film, Color/Silent, 3 min.

A BRAKHAGE SONG

1972, 8 mm, Color/Silent, 3 min.

TRAVELING

1970, 25:27 min, color, silent, 8mm film on video

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MARIE AND ME

1970, 8:30 min, color, silent, 8mm film on video

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ELEGY

1970, 3:24 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

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PLAY OR ‘YES’, ‘YES’, ‘YES’

1970, 11:16 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

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DEATH OF A MARRIAGE

1969, 3:09 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

""Death of a Marriage I think is my first psychodrama – finding images and filmic methods of portraying my interior emotional being..." — Barbara Hammer

CLEANSED II

1969, 7:43 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

Abstractions of light, hand shaped mattes, radical exposure changes and the subjective body of the filmmaker mark this early film of Hammer with filmic language that reappears in her later work.

ALDEBARAN SEES

1969, 3:15 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

"Aldebaran is the brightest star of the Taurus constellation. It is not without hubris that I claimed that light-seeing eye for myself..." — Barbara Hammer

CLAY I LOVE YOU II

1969, 5:19 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

On a trip in anticipation of an around the world motor scooter tour in 1973, Hammer and her ex-husband traverse the Mendocino coast on their motorcycle – Hammer filming all the while from the rear seat. Light reflections, creative camera perspectives, and Hammer's signature self-inclusion mark this early film.

WHITE CASSANDRA

1968, 4:08 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

"Aerial views of Los Angeles rooftops and a swimming pool surrounded by tan sunbathers contrast starkly with the Wheeler Ranch, hippie free land of shacks and barren landscape in Sonoma County..." — Barbara Hammer

CONTRIBUTION TO LIGHT

1968, 3:42 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

"Contribution to Light is all about my excitement and thrill at seeing reflected and refracted light. I shot the edges of pieces of found broken glass that streamed light rays broken into myriad colors. I saw, years later, a shared aesthetic in Stan Brakhage’s study of a crystal ashtray." — Barbara Hammer

THE BAPTISM

1968, 9:21 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on HD video

BARBARA WARD WILL NEVER DIE

1968, 3:21 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

Her second film—created in 1968 while the artist was still married (her married name was Barbara Ward)—programmatically shows the desecration of a graveyard.

SCHIZY

1968, 3:59 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

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