The Female Closet

Greetings from Washington, D.C.

A short documentary about the First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which took place on Sunday, October 14th 1979.

Sisters!

A celebration and collage of lesbians, including footage of the Women's International Day march in SF and joyous dancing from the last night of the second Lesbian Conference where Family of Woman played; as well as images of women doing all types of traditional "men's" work.

Spare the Child

It shows a family where the son makes a wish to switch sizes with the father so that he can be the boss for a change. The father doesn't like this at all. After a while, the son slowly realizes that being a grownup isn't all that easy. Unfortunately, the father doesn't seem to realize that the same holds true for being a kid.

Multiple Orgasm

A hand plays with a vagina as the same scene drifts over a sea of erotic rock formations.

No No Nooky T.V.

NO NO NOOKY TV posits sexuality to be a social construct in a "sex-text" of satiric graphic representation of "dirty pictures." Made on an Amiga Computer and shot in 16mm film, NO NO NOOKY TV confronts the feminist controversy around sexuality with electronic language, pixels and interface. Even the monitor is eroticized in this film/video hybrid that points fun at romance, sexuality, and love in our post-industrial age. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

Sanctus

Hammer used old x-ray footage, rearranged, colored and orchestrated through optical printing, in order to reveal hidden bodily movements and rhythms in its constant juxtaposition.

Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor

From 2015 to 2017, Lynne Sachs visited with Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer and Gunvor Nelson, three multi-faceted artists who have embraced the moving image throughout their lives.

Double Strength

Four stages of a lesbian relationship explored in an experimental film starring performance artists Terry Sendgraff and Barbara Hammer on suspended trapezes and ropes.

Vever (For Barbara)

Deborah Stratman brings past perspectives into the contemporary moment in a montage of unfinished film footage from artist Barbara Hammer with evocative sound, texts, and teachings from artist Maya Deren. Vever poetically draws connects between three generations of women filmmakers who separately, and now together, have taken on unknown challenges, and opened themselves up to reinterpretation in their filmmaking practices.

Women I Love

A series of cameo portraits of the filmmaker's friends and lovers intercut with a playful celebration of fruits and vegetables in nature.

Nitrate Kisses

Essay documentary explores eroded emulsions and images for lost vestiges of lesbian and gay culture. First feature by a pioneer of lesbian cinema, Hammer weaves gay and lesbian couples with footage that unearths the forbidden and invisible history of a marginalized people.

Maya Deren's Sink

Maya Deren's Sink, a 30 minute experimental film, is an evocative tribute to the mother of avantgarde American film. The film calls forth the spirit of one who was larger than life as recounted by those who knew her. Teiji Ito's family, Carolee Schneemann and Judith Malvina, float through the homes recalling in tiny bits and pieces words of Deren's architectural and personal interior space. Clips from Maya Deren's films are projected back into the spaces where they were originally filmed appearing on the floorboard, furniture, and in the bowl of her former sink. Fluid light projections of intimate space provide an elusive agency for a filmmaker most of us will never know as film with its imaginary nature evokes a former time and space.

Out in South Africa

Out in South Africa, 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. Hammer was invited to have a retrospective in summer, 1994, at the first Gay and Lesbian film festival on the African continent. She wanted to do more than screen her films and videos; she wanted to teach video production skills in the townships. These workshops provide the deeply moving stories lesbians and gays told to one another.

Pools

Made with Barbara Klutinis. Shot with an underwater camera exploring the swimming pools of the Hearst Castle, California.

Sappho

Using the sixth century B.C. lyricist's poetry, a group of women unwrap the papyrus gauze of the lesbian goddess and bring her to life. Made by Barbara and six students, together at the Women's Building in Los Angeles.

Menses

A wry comedy on the disagreeable aspects of menstruation where 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.