Baba Hillman grew up in Japan, Venezuela and Panama and works between France and the U.S.. Her films and performance works question belief systems, memory, perception and the poetics and politics of place, language, and the body. She received her BA from Duke University and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. She is Professor Emerita of Film at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.

Her most recent film, “Kitâb al-Isfâr: The Book of the Journey,” draws upon the writings of Sufi poet and philosopher Ibn ‘Arabi in an exploration of near death and mystical experience in Andalucía. Her films have screened internationally at festivals and museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, FIDMarseille, Edinburgh Film Festival, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Anthology Film Archives, ICAIC Havana, Athens Avant Garde Film Festival, and MIX Brazil among others.

Hillman is the recipient of a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2024 MacDowell Fellowship. She has also received awards from the French Ministry of Culture, the Fulbright Commission, Whiting Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Italian city governments of Florence, Lecce and Certaldo.