ANGER (1986) - 20:00 min
color, sound

Maxi Cohen was selected to direct the sin of Anger for the feature film Seven Women - Seven Sins made by seven women directors around the world and produced by German Television ZDF and ARTE in France. Cohen put an advertisement in the New York City newspaper The Village Voice, reading, “What makes you angry?” Along with fellow filmmaker Joel Gold, she recorded the conversations with the people who replied to the ad. Some of the subjects include a murderer, a NYC detective alleged to be in collusion with the mob, an hermaphrodite with her/his young daughter, an S&M Wall Street finance guy hooded with whips, and others with surprising stories. As a result, Cohen captured human emotion at its core, as she takes the viewer on an emotional ride through rage and sorrow. During the twenty minutes of the film, we are witness to a number of individuals’ true emotions and different degrees and manifestations of anger.

Anger won first prizes at the Tokyo Video Festival and Montreal Festival of New Cinema, despite not being a candidate for the prize. According to German Television, the film created a cult following for Cohen, due to its radical and outrageous nature. “Only in New York” would someone dare make this kind of film. The form of the film, unseen at the time, has become part of the language of reality filmmaking. Currently, work is underway by the Women in Film Preservation Fund to restore the film and feature film Seven Women - Seven Sins.

When author and radio producer Jonathan Goldstein saw Anger in college, he claimed an image from it was so seared into his mind that he set out to find the film’s interviewees for his new podcast, a great follow up to watching the film. Gimlet's Heavyweight episode #3: Tara   

Anger is now available to stream on Vimeo-on-Demand. 

Heavyweight podcast titled Tara (following up after Anger) https://soundcloud.com/heavyweightpodcast/3-tara