Retrospective Short Films

Barbara Hammer 2: Sister Lessons Nr. 1

Sister Lessons Nr. 1
The title os this program is inspired by Hammer’s film “History Lessons” from 2000.

Diving Women of Jeju-do (USA, 2007, 24 min)
Jeju-do is the largest of Korean islands and lies between Korea and Japan. There, for hundreds of years, women dive without breathing apparatus to the ocean floor and collect shellfish, octopus, and urchins that they sell. This ancient women´s tradition is about to die. Barbara Hammer dives with the women and records the reasons behind their disappearing work and lifestyles.

Lover/Other
USA, 2006, 55 min
1920s Surrealist artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore come to life in this hybrid documentary. Lesbians and step-sisters, the gender-bending artists lived and worked together all their lives. Heroic resisters to the Nazis occupying Jersey Isle during WWII, they were captured and sentenced to death. Hammer infuses this film with vigor, using photographs, archival footage, dramatic interludes of a found and unique interviews with Jersey Isle residents who knew the “sisters”.

After the screening Anna Linder (curator) and Dagmar Brunow (film scholar) will talk about Hammer’s significance.