** Copresented by Engauge Experimental Film Festival **

Barbara Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) is a key figure in the “second wave” of experimental women filmmakers. She made technically innovative, personal, essayistic, political, and passionate films for a full five decades. Nurtured and inspired by the films and lives of Maya Deren and Marie Menken, Hammer’s filmmaking practice took root in the ’70s, when she became a pioneering figure in the film portrayal of lesbian identity, creating iconic works like Dyketactics (1974). Through her work as a filmmaker, teacher, and author, she continued to inspire young women filmmakers. Her book, Hammer: Making Movies Out of Sex and Life was published by The Feminist Press in 2010.

A few months ago, Hammer delivered a lecture at the Whitney Museum in New York called “The Art of Dying (or, Palliative Art Making in the Age of Anxiety)” that contextualized her own imminent death from terminal cancer in relation to her artmaking practice. We are deeply moved by the courage and generosity with which she shared the details of her transition. Join Engauge Experimental Film Festival and Northwest Film Forum for a memorial screening and celebration of Barbara Hammer’s life and work on May 22nd.

Photo credit, B&W photo of Hammer: Barbara Hammer © 1993 by Joyce Culver.
Photo credit, color photo of Hammer: Queer | Art.