Barbara Hammer: A Short Film Retrospective

+ Director’s Talk: About Barbara Hammer

16.10.2026, 20:00 — 22:00

KASKcinema, Gent

“Touching another woman’s body changed my life,” said avant-garde pioneer Barbara Hammer (1940–2019). “It had to be shown.” When she came out as a lesbian in the early 1970s, she reinvented herself through the Seventh Art. Hammer broke with the visual language of the seventies, placing lesbian desire and female experience at the centre. Not merely as subject matter, but as form: her films pulse, flicker and breathe, as if they were living bodies themselves.

In Dyketactics (1974) and Sappho (1978), the boundaries between documentary, diary and avant-garde dissolve. Her sensual shorts can be read as love letters to the women she loved or desired. Later, her work became more reflective, exploring time and transience. Until the end, her work remained driven by one conviction: to make visible what remains out of sight.

On the occasion of Barbara Forever (Brydie O’Connor, 2026), Film Fest Gent, in collaboration with yanco and Art Cinema OFFoff, presents a short film programme dedicated to Hammer, followed by a talk with Hammer collaborator Nicole Fernández Ferrer.

Barbara Hammer: A Short Film Retrospective is a collaboration between Film Fest Gent, yanco and Art Cinema OFFoff.

Programme

Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer, 1974)

Dyketactics

Barbara Hammer, USA, 1974, 4’

Of the more than eighty moving-image works that Barbara Hammer created, her 1974 film Dyketactics remains her most iconic. A four-minute paean to lesbian sexuality, the film publicly announced Hammer’s blossoming sexual identity.

Sappho (Barbara Hammer, 1978)

Sappho

Barbara Hammer, USA, 1978, 7’

Using the sixth century B.C. lyricist’s poetry, a group of women unwrap the papyrus gauze of the lesbian goddess and bring her to life. Made by Barbara and six students at the Women’s Building in Los Angeles.

Audience (Barbara Hammer, 1982)

Audience

Barbara Hammer, USA, 1982, 32’

Barbara Hammer takes out her camera to film audiences at screenings of her films. She wanted to show the diversity in a women’s audience: the sophistication, the thoughtfulness, the fun-loving spirit, the flirtations, the detailed, the subtle.

Snow Job: The Media Hysteria of AIDS (Barbara Hammer, 1986)

Snow Job: The Media Hysteria of AIDS

Barbara Hammer, USA, 1986, 8’

In this film, Barbara Hammer examined the public ignorance, stigmatisation, and fundamentally misguided attitudes surrounding AIDS.

A Horse is Not a Metaphor (Barbara Hammer, 2009)

A Horse is Not a Metaphor

Barbara Hammer, USA, 2009, 30’

As a cancer ‘thriver’ rather than ‘survivor’, Barbara Hammer changes illness into recovery in this film.

yanco presents

short film programme

curated by Michiel Philippaerts