Pioneer lesbian-feminist filmmaker Barbara Hammer constructs an autobiography before somebody does it for her in this post-modern sequel to her 1992 awardwinning documentary Nitrate Kisses. Stories of the artist as a young lesbian and intimate tales of the lesbian as a young artist underscore the filmmaker’s life of performances. She robs an American Express Bank in Morocco with a Swiss Army knife, accosts a shepherd in a field on International Women’s Day, and tap dances on Shirley Temple’s star on Hollywood Boulevard. This child movie star was the ideal by which Hammer’s ambitious mother measured her own Barbie. Grandma, already a cook for Lillian Gish in Hollywood, introduced the cute, loquacious child and her mother to D. W. Griffith. Lesbian autobiography is a slender genre, so Hammer draws from general culture studies for critique and to provide an ironic edge to the synthesized ‘voices of authority’. Using personal archival footage of the AFL/CIO faculty strike at San Francisco State College supported by the Black Panther Party (1968), the first San Diego Women’s Music Festival (1965), and the ‘Take Back the Night March’ in San Francisco (1979), Hammer challenges a younger generation to visualize a world which existed before they did. The stories tug at your heart, the theory teases your intellect, and the fragile line between truth and fiction provoke you in this dense and hypnotic montage. Berlinialle Catalog-1996 We are proud to present part two of Frameline Award winner Barbara Hammer's lesbian history trilogy, TENDER FICTIONS. TENDER FICTIONS is a stunning work that blurs the lines between emotion and intellect, truth and fiction, while creating an engaging and empowering vision of her own history. Exploring the exhilarating and intimate tales of the artist as a young lesbian — and of the lesbian as a young artist — Hammer underscores her life of performances. She robs an American Express Bank in Morocco with a Swiss Army knife, accosts a shepherd in a field on International Women's Day, and tap dances on Shirley Temple's star on Hollywood Boulevard. Temple was the ideal by which Hammer's ambitious mother measured her own "Barbie." Grandma, a cook for Lillian Gish, introduced the cute, loquacious child and her mother to D. W. Griffith. Drawing from many general culture studies to create her own lesbian autobiography (before someone else does it for her), Hammer critiques our culture's homogenous "voices of authority" without losing her sense of irony. Using personal footage of activist milestones, Hammer also challenges a younger generation to visualize a world which existed before they did.-2000
