Audience

Part of Pavilion Shorts: Barbara Hammer on October 2.

Barbara Hammer engages in a dialogue with her audience. On the streets of San Francisco, she talks to people waiting in line for her retrospective—what are they hoping to see? Later, in post-screening discussions in London, Toronto, and Montreal—what did they think?

It is a premise as simple as it is brilliant, producing disarming conversations, not least thanks to the charismatic figure of Hammer herself. For many of her viewers, Hammer’s films are nothing short of a revelation: at a time when queer representation on screen was virtually nonexistent, with effortless ease Hammer placed lesbian women—and lesbian pleasure—at the center. The significance of this cannot be overstated, as the audience’s responses to her films make clear.

In its naturalistic approach, this joy-filled time capsule shot in black and white on 16 mm is something of an outlier in Hammer’s oeuvre. Audience is Barbara Hammer’s tribute to her viewers, to the collective experience of film, and to the lives of queer people.

This screening is part of Focus: Barbara Hammer, a program presenting films by American filmmaker and visual artist Barbara Hammer. See the full program here.