Michelle Handelman

Explore Michelle Handelman’s films. Browse credits and ratings, see where to watch, and find your next movie with ReelBot.

Directing

Michelle Handelman (born August 5, 1960) is an American contemporary artist, filmmaker, and writer who works with live performance, multiscreen installation, photography and sound. Coming up through the years of the AIDS crisis and Culture Wars, Handelman has built a body of work that explores the dark and uncomfortable spaces of queer desire. She confronts the things that provoke collective fear and denial – sexuality, death, chaos. She directed the ground-breaking feature documentary on the 1990s San Francisco lesbian S/M scene BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes & Sadomasochism(1995), described by IndieWire as “a queer classic ahead of its time, a vital archive of queer history.” Her early work included 16mm black and white experimental films combined with performance. She is also known for her video installations Hustlers & Empires (2018), Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013-2015), and Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume (2009-2011). In 2011, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for her film and video work.

Filmography

• Claiming the Liminal Space (2021)
• Abigail (2021)
• Candyland (2020)
• Solitude is an Artifact of the Struggle Against Oppression (2020)
• These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves (2020)
• FIT Hives: Sustainability - The Secret to Survival (2017)
• Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2014)
• Dorian, a cinematic perfume (2009)
• I Hate You (2002)
• La Suture (2000)
• BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism (1995)
• Twists in the Cord (or) … Other Extensions of the Telephone (1994)
• Terminal USA (1993)
• A History of Pain (1992)
• Flesh Histories (1992)
• Homophobia Is Known to Cause Nightmares (1991)
• Safer Sexual Techniques in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1988)
• The Lens Within Me