This May 15, we honor pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939-2019) with a special screening on what would have been her 87th birthday. Between 1968 and 2018, Hammer made 86 films. Her decades-spanning career moved across multiple genres and media formats; nevertheless, her work remained unified in its exploration of queer life and fiercely political perspective.

The shorts selected below, guest-picked by Andrea Torres, offer a generous sample of Hammer’s one-of-a-kind approach to filmmaking: personal, ebullient, erotic, dreamy, and always radical. Hammer’s early 1970s works foreground a sustained investment in collective queer worldmaking. Instead of positioning eroticism as private or purely phenomenological, these films mobilize it as a social force inseparable from emergent forms of lesbian visibility and activist formation. Together, they gesture toward a liberatory horizon grounded in the radical socialities of the moment. Across these works, Hammer’s early explorations of intimacy, aging, futurity, and the natural and imagined worlds come into focus.

Theatrical premiere of new 4K scans of SCHIZY, Hammer’s first film, and TRAVELING from the preservation print at the Academy Film Archive.

Silent films with live musical accompaniment by Lea Jaffe.

FRIDAY, MAY 15 – 10 PM

Total runtime: 102 minutes

SCHIZY
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1968.
USA. 4 min.

New 4k scan from the preservation print at the Academy Film Archive.

With live musical accompaniment by Lea Jaffe.

“My first film was Schizy and was about learning to see double. What was the reality I saw? And what was expected of me? And how did other people see me.” – Barbara Hammer

Prior to filmmaking, Hammer studied Psychology and English Literature. Her interest in interrogating the inner-self and finding ways to visualize it recurs in her films. It’s there from the start, when Hammer picked up a pair of bifocal lenses and shot through them, offering up a split vision of the world that reflected her own belief that there was more than one way to look at one’s surroundings and more than one way to live one’s life.

DYKETACTICS
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1974.
USA. 4 min.

A landmark short film, Hammer’s Dyketactics consists of images of naked women laying about in the countryside. To quote her: “A popular lesbian ‘commercial,’ 110 images of sensual touching montages in A, B, C, D rolls of ‘kinaesthetic’ editing.”

DOUBLE STRENGTH
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1978.
USA. 20 min.

For Double Strength, Hammer collaborated with performance artist Terry Sendgraff to visualize the different stages of woman-to-woman relationships. A study in endurance, Hammer’s short embodies each and every blissful and painful step in a relationship: from the honeymoon stage, to the break-up, to the eventual friendship.

MULTIPLE ORGASM
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1976.
USA. 6 min.

With live musical accompaniment by Lea Jaffe.

Clitoral close ups as scenes of masturbation drift into a sea of erotic rock formations towards ecstatic rupture.

DREAM AGE
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1979.
USA. 11 min.

Aptly titled, Hammer’s Dream Age is one of her dreamiest films: a surreal odyssey about a septuagenarian lesbian feminist who sends her 40-year-old self out on a journey across San Francisco. A lesbian fable if there ever was one.

SUPERDYKE
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1975.
USA. 18 min.

Superdyke sees Hammer stage a comedy across San Francisco. The film’s premise revolves around a squad of Amazonian warriors hellbent on overthrowing the foggy Californian outpost.

SISTERS!
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1974.
USA. 8 min.

Hammer’s experimental documentary returns to the idea of lesbians taking over the world. Here, she edits together footage of Women’s International Day march in San Francisco alongside scenes from the Second Lesbian Conference and images of women doing traditional “men’s” work. It’s a wonderful ode to the spirit of lesbianism, alive and in action.

“It’s about women taking over the world: women driving trucks, changing Volkswagen engines, and leading the police in new revolutions! It also has footage of women topless, dancing, sweating – with babies on their shoulders! – to the music of the Family of Woman band at the second National Lesbian Conference that took place at UCLA, where Audre Lorde and Kate Millett spoke.” — Barbara Hammer

I WAS/I AM
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1973.
USA. 6 min.

This early Hammer short sees the filmmaker transform before the audience. Once a damsel in distress, she emerges a bike dyke.

TRAVELING
dir. Barbara Hammer, 1970.
USA. 25 min.

New 4k scan from the preservation print at the Academy Film Archive.

With live musical accompaniment by Lea Jaffe.

Much of Hammer’s life involved travel: from New York to San Francisco, Montreal to London, New Mexico to Guatemala. Here are some glimpses of those trips.

Special thanks to Andrea Torres for making this program possible. Extra special thanks to the Estate of Barbara Hammer, Louky Keijsers Koning and Florrie Burke, Mark Toscano and the Academy Film Archive, Electronic Arts Intermix, and Brydie O’Connor.