When
Wed 26 Oct 2022
Hammer’s first feature recontextualises material from the 1933 landmark queer film Lot in Sodom within an optically manipulated fretwork of associative montage, while also appropriating excerpts from 1930s German fiction films and footage of three couples making love. This palimpsest of representations of homosexual life found in the margins and outtakes of cinema history powerfully confronts heteronormative images of sexual and erotic love. Preceded by Endangered (Barbara Hammer, 1988, 18 mins – Unclassified 15+). A materialist reflection on the threatened tradition of experimental filmmaking.
Also screening on Wed 26 October
Program
Queering the Archive: The Cinema of Barbara Hammer (Wed 26 Oct - Wed 02 Nov)
Nitrate Kisses (1992) – Wed 26 Oct, 7pm
Superdykes! The early films of Barbara Hammer (1974–76) – Wed 26 Oct, 8.35pm
History Lessons (2000) – Wed 26 Oct, 9.25pm
Projecting Light and Bending Time: Barbara Hammer in the 1980s (1982–83) – Wed 2 Nov, 7pm
The Female Closet (1998) – Wed 2 Nov, 8.05pm
About the program
Queering the Archive: The Cinema of Barbara Hammer (Wed 26 Oct – Wed 2 Nov)
Over a career spanning 50 years and more than 80 moving-image works, American filmmaker and visual artist Barbara Hammer (1939–2019) initiated a new kind of cinema made from a distinctively female and lesbian perspective, challenging the assumptions of mainstream culture and opening a discourse for marginalised groups in society. Her personal and experimental films sought to inspire social change and make largely invisible bodies, images and histories seen.
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
