Sini Anderson (born November 6, 1969) is an American film director, producer, performance artist, choreographer, dancer and poet, from Chicago, Illinois.
Anderson is widely known for directing ''
The Punk Singer'' (2013), a documentary about
riot grrrl
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington, and the greater Pacific Northwest, and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. A subcultural movement ...
musician
Kathleen Hanna's legacy and experience with late-stage
Lyme disease
Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a tick-borne disease caused by species of ''Borrelia'' bacteria, Disease vector, transmitted by blood-feeding ticks in the genus ''Ixodes''. It is the most common disease spread by ticks in th ...
.
Early life in Chicago
Anderson did not attend high school or college.
As a young adult, she began her artistic career as a professional dancer, studying contemporary modern dance with the Chicago Dance Medium. After some years of performing as a professional dancer in Chicago, Anderson desired a voice beyond choreography and began to write. At age 22, Anderson performed the first spoken word piece she had ever written at the
Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in
Uptown, Chicago, and won the slam for that evening. This was more than enough to encourage Anderson to fully delve into the Chicago poetry slam scene, prompting her to begin her own spoken word group called "The Words to Swallow Poets". Anderson continued to perform with The Words to Swallow Poets at local clubs and venues opening up for musical acts before moving to San Francisco.
San Francisco
Introduction to feminism
Anderson is incredibly outspoken about her particular brand of feminism, which is entirely peer-taught, punk rock, and non-exclusionary. Having not have had the opportunity to attend high school or college and take women's studies classes, San Francisco was Anderson's creative college in terms of the feminist punk art scene.
It was here in her early twenties that she first heard the phrase "feminist" and immersed herself into the works of feminist artists through zines and touring, falling in love with third wave feminism for its accessibility and protesting of popular culture.
She cites
Tammy Rae Carland,
Kathleen Hanna, and
Michelle Tea as her greatest peer influences. Anderson has said that her view of feminism has evolved over time yet still remains built around art, friends, and community.
She has also said that vulnerability and a willingness to emote can be strengths rather than weaknesses for women, and are important aspects of feminism.
Sister Spit and Sister Spit's Ramblin' Road Show
Upon moving to San Francisco, Anderson was enraged by the massive sexism in the city's poetry slam scene. Within her first few months of living in San Francisco, Anderson became close friends with Michelle Tea, with whom she would co-create an all-girl weekly open mic series,
Sister Spit (1994–1997), and Sister Spit's Ramblin Road Show, a
spoken word
Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition, ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetic ...
tour from 1997 to 2000.
Anderson and Tea performed in San Francisco for three years before they began Sister Spit's Rambling Road Show, in which they took ten other queer performers on the road with them across the country for three consecutive six-week national summer tours. Sister Spit released several albums including I Spit on Your Country (1997) on
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released ...
, Sister Spit's Ramblin Road Show (1998), Sister Spit's Ramblin Road Show (1999), Greatest Spits!: A Spoken Word Compilation (2001) on
Mr. Lady Records and Tribe Spit Deep (2002). Her work is also found in ''
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry'' (ThunderMouth Press)
and Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press).
Involvement in San Francisco's queer community
Anderson spent much of her career in San Francisco’s
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...
community as Chief Curator/Artistic Director for The National Queer Arts Festival, a co-producer for the Nectar Stage at San Francisco's Pride, president of the board of directors for the
Harvey Milk Institute, and co-chair of the board of directors for The Queer Cultural Center.
Career as an independent filmmaker
Anderson always knew she wanted to be a filmmaker, but didn't believe it was possible without film school. Nevertheless, Anderson's interest in the underground San Francisco film scene in the late 90s prompted her to work with other artists and assist first-time directors in making films. Anderson then began to make her own short films, incorporating video to go with her stage performances, becoming a
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...
performance artist.
The making of ''The Punk Singer'' and Hanna's Lyme disease
Anderson and Hanna had known about each other as fellow artists for years, but it wasn't until mutual friend Tammy Rae Carland introduced the two at the Michigan Women's Music Festival in 2000 that the pair became friends. In 2009, family and friends grew increasingly worried about Hanna's deteriorating health.
Hanna had initially approached Anderson about directing the documentary ''Who Took the Bomp?'' (2010) for her band,
Le Tigre
Le Tigre (, ; French for "The Tiger") is an American art punk and riot grrrl band formed by Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill), Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning in 1998 in New York City. Benning left in 2000 and was replaced by JD Samson. ...
, but Anderson was more concerned with preserving the legacy of her career as a whole.
In the spirit of third wave feminism, Hanna agreed to have the documentary made only if Anderson would direct it; Hanna encouraged Anderson to make her first feature-length while Anderson encouraged Hanna to tell her story. Anderson has stated that it is important for people "to hear the deeper story of who
annais and where she came from, so that they could feel less alone."
Halfway through filming, Hanna was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease.
The film initially was not about Hanna's Lyme disease.
Anderson's purpose of making the film was to tell the story of Hanna's participation in the riot grrrl movement and career in punk band
Bikini Kill
Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group originally consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail.
The band pio ...
through interviews conducted with Hanna's family and friends, and archival footage retrieved from personal archives.
The story evolved on its own, giving it entirely new purpose.
She has stated that Lyme disease is "such an isolating disease, quite often our own families don't even understand it."
Anderson feels that Hanna's willingness "to show the vulnerability" of her illness can "potentially be of service to other people".
Film release and reception
The film premiered in March 2013 at
SXSW
South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...
to positive reviews,
and proceeded to be released in 73 cities across America.
The film was distributed by IFC films.
Anderson's film has won numerous awards such as the Seattle International Film Festival's "Lena Sharpe Aware for Persistence of Vision, Women in Cinema" and Mexico City's Distrital International Film Festival's "Best First Feature Director" and "ARCA Best Director Award", and POV's Humanitarian Award in Media.
In May 2014,
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...
reported that some of the
Kickstarter
Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
backers of ''The Punk Singer'' did not get the items they paid for, including signed posters, sneak previews and tickets to a private screening. Anderson said that since the documentary was now owned by
IFC Films
Independent Film Company (formerly IFC Films) is an American film production and distribution company based in New York City, New York. It is an offshoot of IFC (U.S. TV channel), IFC, owned by AMC Networks.
It mainly distributes independent fil ...
, she was unable to provide sneak previews or private screenings.
Anderson's Lyme disease
Only six weeks after friend Kathleen Hanna's diagnosis of late stage Lyme disease, Anderson ended up in the hospital with signs of a possible heart attack or stroke, receiving an official diagnosis of late stage Lyme a month later.
At first, doctors told Anderson that there was nothing wrong with her, despite her getting more ill with every passing day.
Not wanting to complicate the story of ''The Punk Singer'' or detract the focus from Hannah's illness, Anderson was reluctant to admit publicly during the filming that she had been diagnosed as well.
As the making of the film went into post-production, Anderson grew more ill, ending up on an IV
PICC line as a means of receiving intravenous antibiotic treatments.
The treatments have strengthened Anderson's health and immune system, but today she still keeps a close watch for telltale signs of sickness, taking herbs and eating a healthy diet.
After ''The Punk Singer'' was made, Anderson learned of 17 other feminist queer artists in her inner-circle that had been diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease as well.
Today, the number of diagnosed feminist queer artists that Anderson knows personally has grown to 75.
Other works and future products
Other independent film credits include first assistant director on Miggy n Lil (2006), Bare Knuckle (2007), and Karma Calling (2009).
Anderson directed the book trailer for the memoir Whip Smart by
Melissa Febos,
which won Best Short Documentary
at the Fetisch Film Festival 2010.
She has directed numerous music videos including
Jolie Holland's "All Those Girls" (2012),
Lovers' "Girl in the Grass" (2014),
and
Girlpool's "Blah Blah Blah" (2014).
Additionally, Anderson has lectured at several universities across America such as Yale University,
Wesleyan University,
University of Pennsylvania,
Smith College,
Rutgers University, and Ohio Wesleyan.
''So Sick'' (2016)
Anderson is currently in production of her second feature-film, a documentary titled ''So Sick''.
The film is Anderson's vessel of exploring the epidemic of feminist artists, academics, and activists with late stage Lyme disease.
Personal life
Anderson lived in San Francisco, California in her 20s
and currently splits her time between
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York and Los Angeles, California.
She identifies as
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...
and lesbian.
See also
*
List of female film and television directors
*
List of lesbian filmmakers
This is a list of lesbian filmmakers. The names listed include directors, producers, and screenwriters of feature films, Television film, television movies, Documentary film, documentaries and short films; and have received coverage or been recog ...
*
List of LGBT-related films directed by women
This is a list of lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-related films that were directed by women. LGBTQ-themed films directed by women – especially, but not exclusively, lesbian-themed movies – are an important and distinct s ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Sini
Living people
1969 births
American women film directors
American lesbian artists
American LGBTQ film directors
Artists from Chicago
Film directors from Illinois
LGBTQ people from Illinois
21st-century American women artists