Director
Michelle Handelman
66 years · Chicago, Illinois, USA · 9 films
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.
Best known for
Terminal USA
1993 · Music
BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
1995 · Producer, Editor
On Kanopy
Homophobia Is Known to Cause Nightmares
1991 · Director
These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves
2020 · Director
Dorian, a cinematic perfume
2009 · Director
Twists in the Cord (or) … Other Extensions of the Telephone
1994 · Actor
Filmography 9
These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves
2020 · Director
Dorian, a cinematic perfume
2009 · Director
BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes, and Sadomasochism
1995 · Producer, Editor
On Kanopy
Twists in the Cord (or) … Other Extensions of the Telephone
1994 · Actor
Terminal USA
1993 · Music
A History of Pain
1992 · Actor, Director
Flesh Histories
1992 · Director
Homophobia Is Known to Cause Nightmares
1991 · Director
Safer Sexual Techniques in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
1988 · Director