Bio
Barbara Hammer has produced and directed fifty-one films and twenty-five videotapes. Her first feature, “Nitrate Kisses” (1992), was funded by the NEA and has been screened in countries worldwide including Canada, Europe, New Zealand and South Africa. This film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 1993 Women Director's Film Festival in Madrid, the Polar Bear Award at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival, and was selected for the Sundance, Creteil, Popoli and Feminale Festivals in addition to many others. Hammer was awarded a Guardian Interview with its screening at the National Film Theatre, London. “Nitrate Kisses” opened theatrically in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin. It was reviewed favourably by Vincent Canby in the NY Times.
Hammer's second documentary feature, “Tender Fictions” (1995), premiered at the Sundance '96 Film Festival in the U.S. and the 34th International Film Festival in Berlin in Europe. It was awarded the Isabella Lidell Art Award at the 1996 Ann Arbor Film Festival and has screened at numerous galleries and festivals worldwide. Barbara has had retrospectives at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska, The Film Forum in Los Angeles and most recently, at the Out in Africa Film Festival in Capetown, South Africa. Many of her films are in permanent collections and film libraries at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The National Film Archives in Brussels, and the Donnell Library in New York City. Hammer's films were selected for the 1987, 1989, and 1993 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials in New York. She has received numerous other prizes and awards at national and international film festivals and has had work screened on public television broadcasts in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Dallas.
Hammer has taught at many institutions and is currently teaching "Feminist Film", a lecture/screening course in the graduate division of Media Studies at The New School for Social Research and "Documentary Film" at The School for Visual Arts in New York City.