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Barbara Hammer
Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hammer is known for having created experimental films dealing with women's issues such as gender roles, lesbian relationships, coping with aging, and family life. She resided in New York City and Kerhonkson, New York, and taught each summer at the European Graduate School.
Hammer was born on May 15, 1939, in Los Angeles, California, to Marian (Kusz) and John Wilber Hammer, and grew up in Inglewood. She became familiar with the film industry from a young age, as her mother hoped she would become a child star like Shirley Temple, and her grandmother worked as a live-in cook for American film director D. W. Griffith. Her maternal grandparents were Ukrainian; her grandfather was from Zbarazh. Hammer was raised without religion, but her grandmother was Roman Catholic.
In 1961, Hammer graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and married Clayton Henry Ward, on the condition that he take her traveling around the world. She received a master's degree in English literature in 1963. In the early 1970s, she studied film at San Francisco State University, where she first encountered Maya Deren's experimental short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), which inspired her to make her own experimental films about her personal life.
In 1974, Hammer was married and teaching at a community college in Santa Rosa. Around this time, she came out as a lesbian, after talking with another student in a feminist group. After leaving her marriage, she "took off on a motorcycle with a Super-8 camera." That year she filmed Dyketactics, widely considered one of the first lesbian films. She graduated with a master's degree in film from San Francisco State University.
In 1992, she released her first feature film, Nitrate Kisses, an experimental documentary about the marginalization of LGBT people in the 20th century. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Polar Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Internacional de Cine Realizado por Mujeres in Madrid. Conversely, right-wing organizations labeled the film a "homoerotic film abomination." She earned a post-master's in multimedia digital studies at the American Film Institute in 1997. In 2000, she received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital, and in 2013, she was a Guggenheim Fellow.
She received the first Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award in October 2006, the Women In Film Award from the St. Louis International Film Festival in 2006, and in 2009, she received the Teddy Award for best short film for her film A Horse Is Not a Metaphor at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2010, Hammer published her autobiography, HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life, which addresses her personal history and her philosophies on art.
She taught film at The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. In 2017, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University acquired her archives.
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Barbara Hammer
Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hammer is known for having created experimental films dealing with women's issues such as gender roles, lesbian relationships, coping with aging, and family life. She resided in New York City and Kerhonkson, New York, and taught each summer at the European Graduate School.
Hammer was born on May 15, 1939, in Los Angeles, California, to Marian (Kusz) and John Wilber Hammer, and grew up in Inglewood. She became familiar with the film industry from a young age, as her mother hoped she would become a child star like Shirley Temple, and her grandmother worked as a live-in cook for American film director D. W. Griffith. Her maternal grandparents were Ukrainian; her grandfather was from Zbarazh. Hammer was raised without religion, but her grandmother was Roman Catholic.
In 1961, Hammer graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and married Clayton Henry Ward, on the condition that he take her traveling around the world. She received a master's degree in English literature in 1963. In the early 1970s, she studied film at San Francisco State University, where she first encountered Maya Deren's experimental short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), which inspired her to make her own experimental films about her personal life.
In 1974, Hammer was married and teaching at a community college in Santa Rosa. Around this time, she came out as a lesbian, after talking with another student in a feminist group. After leaving her marriage, she "took off on a motorcycle with a Super-8 camera." That year she filmed Dyketactics, widely considered one of the first lesbian films. She graduated with a master's degree in film from San Francisco State University.
In 1992, she released her first feature film, Nitrate Kisses, an experimental documentary about the marginalization of LGBT people in the 20th century. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Polar Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Internacional de Cine Realizado por Mujeres in Madrid. Conversely, right-wing organizations labeled the film a "homoerotic film abomination." She earned a post-master's in multimedia digital studies at the American Film Institute in 1997. In 2000, she received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital, and in 2013, she was a Guggenheim Fellow.
She received the first Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award in October 2006, the Women In Film Award from the St. Louis International Film Festival in 2006, and in 2009, she received the Teddy Award for best short film for her film A Horse Is Not a Metaphor at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2010, Hammer published her autobiography, HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life, which addresses her personal history and her philosophies on art.
She taught film at The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. In 2017, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University acquired her archives.