Hima B. is a queer woman who was born in India and raised in the US.  She is an independent director/producer who makes documentaries, narratives, & experimental films/videos that explore the
intersections of race, immigration, gender, sexual orientation, labor, & economics, especially as they
impact queer women.  She recently completed the Emerge9 artist residency at Aljira Museum in NJ.  Hima
B. has received funding from Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, Astraea National Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Horizons Foundation, and a Video Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts.

Hima B. is currently in production on two documentaries which are notable creative departures from her previous films as she weaves a tapestry of cinema verite, archival media, & animation to create an experimental non-fictional videos that delves deeply into her protagonists’ experiences.  AND I DO
SURVIVE is about Michelle Lopez, a lesbian and single parent from Trinidad who builds a home in a country that refuses her American citizenship because she is an HIV+ immigrant.  LICENSE TO PIMP chronicles three San Francisco strippers who choose different paths in resisting coerced prostitition as their workplaces become brothels.

Hima B.'s 1st documentary, STRAIGHT FOR THE MONEY: INTERVIEWS WITH QUEER SEX WORKERS (1994), premiered at the 1994 San Francisco Int’l. Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, the 1994 Whitney Museum’s series "From India to America: New Directions in Indian American Film & Video", the 1995 Whitney Biennial, & continues to be screened in nationally and globally.

She co-directed/produced/starred in LICK (1995) with Eliza Barrios.  It is a short narrative about a jilted
lesbian who is drawn down a hallway punctuated by probing hands, tongues, & razors and is forced to
confront her ex-lover’s repulsion of her.  She takes comfort in plotting a bittersweet fantasy of revenge.
Can she persuade her ex to rekindle their relationship?

Hima's second documentary, COMING OUT, COMING HOME (1996) features four Asian Pacific Islander families and their gay and lesbian adult children as they engage in dialogues about shame, grief, love, growth, HIV/AIDS, the acceptance of homosexuality by family members & their cultures.

Described as “queering Kafka,” ENT-HOMO-PHILIA (2003) is an experimental short that is a metaphor for
internalized homophobia.  Parallels between insect behavior & the main character’s mating ritual are made during her transformation.

Artist Code: 405