A Month of Single Frames

During a spare month in 1998, Barbara Hammer works inside a waterless, power-free Duneshack on Cape Cod, recording with a 16mm Beaulieu camera, a cassette deck, and a worn notebook. Decades later, as she nears the end of life, she revisits that personal archive and invites Lynne Sachs to shape a film from it. The result is not a conventional documentary but a meditation on memory, time, and the material traces of art. Sachs curates Hammer’s images, sounds, and writing into a new film language, letting the archive speak through editing, rhythm, and texture. The focus stays on process and surface rather than a plotted plot. Its pace rewards careful attention to surface and texture.

Directed by Lynne Sachs, this 2019 documentary assembles Barbara Hammer's Duneshack material, including 16mm images, sounds, and diary fragments, to reframe Hammer's early Cape Cod residency as a located archive rather than a standard portrait. The production foregrounds hands-on archival work and patient, observational editing, and a clear sense of place.

Box office data for this documentary is not widely reported, reflecting its niche festival visibility and streaming presence rather than a broad commercial release. International showings have highlighted its experimental approach to curious audiences worldwide.

No major awards are listed in readily available sources. The film is noted for its patient handling of archival material and for how Sachs translates Hammer’s 16mm frames, sounds, and writings into a living conversation across decades. It has circulated in art-house circuits and universities, sparking discussion of archival practice.

Audiences respond to its intimate cadence and the way memory and mortality anchor the film. The work treats dying not as an end but as a phase of ongoing creative engagement. With a modest 6.8 out of 10 from 11 votes, it reads as a niche meditation on art and memory.