Translated from the original French.

In collaboration with Monoquini and the CAPC, the 19th Cinémarges Festival is offering an introductory workshop-conference to the work of Barbara Hammer, including 3 of her most notable films.

AMOUR•AMOUR•LIBERTÉ (LOVE•LOVE•FREEDOM) WORKSHOP-CONFERENCE

by TAHIN DEMIRAL , videographer, author of research on the cinema of Barbara Hammer. She is interested in the manifestations of the living body in moving images and carries out video projects within Eskemm Films (Rennes). This workshop focuses on how B. Hammer was able to highlight marginalized desires and identities. By contextualizing her cinema from a historical, political and aesthetic point of view, Tahin attempts to make accessible both the formal approach through the analysis of film extracts, and to address the richness of the themes addressed.

The workshop will be held on April 2, 6pm at La Lucarne

NITRATE KISSES – April 2, 8:30pm, La Lucarne

When Barbara Hammer undertook this first long documentary, she already had around forty films to her credit, helping to forge a lesbian aesthetic in cinema outside of conventions, while exploring the potential of the film medium through resolutely experimental works. Whatever her approach – portraits of friends and lovers and/or plastic abstraction – it is always with sensuality that she approaches the surface of bodies and materials which meet the grain of 16 mm film. Thus, the “nitrate kisses” of the title refer to an ancient history of cinema, when the film medium was highly flammable. The aim here is to unearth the buried images of a gay and lesbian culture, hitherto kept secret because it was repressed, and to accompany them with multiple testimonies to actualize its burning presence.

In the presence of Tahin Demiral and Bertrand Grimault, founder of Monoquini, an outstanding programmer on experimental cinema and video art. The first to show and invite Barbara Hammer to Bordeaux (in 2001).

HISTORY LESSONS – April 2, 10:00pm, La Lucarne

These “history lessons” (which could just as well have been called Herstory Lessons) complete the trilogy inaugurated by Nitrate Kisses . They opened a new creative period for Barbara Hammer who would then commit to transmitting the history of feminist and lesbian struggles through a multitude of cinematographic essays. By adopting a hybrid form, between documentary and experimental, these films of great formal and narrative freedom, of which History is in some way the matrix, revisit the archives of the past century in order to construct an alternative memory to the great patriarchal narrative, but also to restore the beauty and joy of individual experiences of which photography or amateur cinema have kept track. An instructive and generous lesson.

In the presence of Bertrand Grimault, who collaborated with History Lessons by sharing exclusive photographic archives.

The film will be projected in its original 16mm format!

LOVER OTHER – April 7, 3pm, CAPC

As usual, Barbara revisits and constitutes the archives, creates and transforms memories, from her beloved avant-garde lesbian gaze.

Here, she goes in search of souvenirs in Jersey, the British island home to the iconic surrealist and gender-bender artist duo Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. From Claude’s point of view, it pays homage to Marcel, often put in the background, and to these alter egos in resistance. From 1940, with the island occupied by the Nazis, the couple broadcast counter-propaganda under the signature of the “nameless soldier”, demonstrating incredible courage. This rare portrait highlights their love in an artistic and revolutionary complementarity.

In the presence of Isabelle Sentis, from Queer Code (space for visibility of lesbians in history).

Followed by a guided tour of the Nina Beier exhibition by Sandra Patron (curator and director of the CAPC).