In honor of the incredible experimental lesbian filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are excited to bring this Tribute to Barbara Hammer for this month’s MicroCinema. A prolific filmmaker, installation artist, and pioneer of feminist and queer cinema for over 50 years, Hammer’s work consistently and relentlessly explored the intimate experiences of lesbian relationships, the erasure and censorship of queer history, and the relationship between sex, age, and the body.

Nitrate Kisses (1992), her first feature-length work, is a foundational queer classic that takes the shape of an experimental documentary exploring queer history and its erasure in the archives and the movies — something she would continue to explore in later work. Her short, Audience (1982), provides us with an insight into her vibrant personality and poses questions about the relationship between the artist, the art, and the audience experience that we wonder about to this day.