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Nitrate Kisses

Directed by Barbara Hammer
USA
67 mins

Synopsis

Defiant and groundbreaking, Barbara Hammer’s Nitrate Kisses (SFF 1993) reclaims erased queer histories through a radical fusion of archival imagery and explicit intimacy.

Acclaimed at Toronto, Sundance and Berlinale, Hammer’s first feature followed more than 60 short films. Created during the AIDS crisis and a surge in LGBTQIA+ activism, it features archival footage, including Lot in Sodom (1933), alongside historical texts like the Hays Code, and portraits of gay and lesbian couples. These elements form a counter-history, foregrounding lives long excluded from dominant narratives. Its depiction of sexuality was labelled a “homoerotic film abomination” by right-wing organisations protesting the government grant that supported its production. Blending politics, erotic imagery and experimental form, it endures as a landmark of queer cinema.

Screens with Snow Job: The Media Hysteria of AIDS

“A collage of images and sounds conveying the intrinsic relationship between desire, memory, and history, Nitrate Kisses examines where queerness is hidden in plain sight, the institutionalization of heterosexuality, the lengths people will go to excavate their identities, and the political and social context of understanding the self.”
Museum of the Moving Image

Tickets

Mon 8 June 2026, 6:20pm
Dendy Newtown - Cinema 2
Assisted ListeningWheelchair

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