Tender Fictions

Hammer’s 1996 documentary “Tender Fictions” is the second in a trilogy of autobiographical films that includes the iconic “Nitrate Kisses” and “History Lessons”. The film was chosen for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, for which Lisanne Skyler wrote, “[Barbara Hammer’s] struggle becomes symbolic of all those who have rejected the ideals by which they were raised…a moving and provocative look at the role of community in an artist’s life and the role of the artist in her community.”

From a collage of old home movies, photographs, interviews, sounds and quotations, the documentary film details Barbara Hammer’s childhood as a young girl born into an Ukrainian family, with a mother who wanted her to be like the child actress Shirley Temple, and a grandmother who worked as a cook for the actress Lillian Gish. It chronicles her life in the 1960s and the moment in 1970 when she first heard the word lesbian and realised that it applied to her.