A dreamlike portrait of lesbian experimental pioneer Barbara Hammer, making use of Hammer’s own films and personal archive to explore her work, loves and legacy.
Director: Brydie O’Connor
Runtime: 102
Fest Year: 2026
Barbara Hammer came out at thirty and left her marriage on a motorcycle with a Super 8 camera. Over the next five decades, she made more than eighty films, such as Dyketactics (1974) and Nitrate Kisses (1992), an experimental feature excavating queer lives erased from history. Hammer died of ovarian cancer in 2019, at seventy-nine, having deposited her document archive at Yale’s Beinecke Library and her trove of film materials at the Academy Film Archive. Director Brydie O’Connor, who met Hammer before her death, draws on these materials to build a portrait made entirely from Hammer’s images, voice, and defiant vision. (YF)