B.D. Women, directed by Inge Blackman

B.D. Women is a wonderful celebration of the history and culture of Black lesbians. Lively interviews feature Black women talking candidly about their sexual and racial identities. These contemporary views are cleverly interwoven with a dramatized love story, set in the 1920s, in which a sultry romance develops between a gorgeous jazz singer and her stylish butch lover. The film rewrites the vanished history of Black lesbians’ lives in an eloquent and entertaining way.
(20 minutes)

The Female Closet, directed by Barbara Hammer

This fascinating videotape from renowned filmmaker Barbara Hammer combines rare footage, interviews, and rich visual documentation to survey the lives of variously closeted women artists from different segments of the 20th century: Victorian photographer Alice Austen, Weimar collagist Hannah Hoch, and present day painter Nicole Eisenman. In a compelling examination of the art world’s treatment of lesbians, Hammer documents how the museum devoted to Austen ignores the implications of her cross dressing photos, how the Museum of Modern Art glossed over Hoch’s sexuality in a major exhibit, and how Eisenman’s work based on patriarchal porn is described by critics as “liberating, fun, and over the top”. Examining the museum as closet, the negotiation of visibility and secrecy in lesbian history, this thoughtful film is a provocative look at the relationship between art, life, and sexuality.
(80 minutes)