Mary Dore was angry. Over the past several decades, there have been hundreds of films about every political movement under the sun, from the civil rights movement, to the gay rights movement, to even the hippie movement. Why have there been so few movies made about the Women’s Liberation Movement?

Using this alarming fact as motivation, Mary started work on the very first documentary to paint a comprehensive picture of the women’s movement.  It was a revolution of crackling energy and bottomless complexity, all of which is represented in the stunning She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry. Swirling together in-depth interviews with some of the key figures of the movement and unforgettable archival footage, the film is a brisk, invigorating, wholly entertaining insider’s look into one of the most significant, under-appreciated pieces of American history.

I spoke to Mary in San Francisco about how tough the documentary market is these days; the film’s grand scope; why the women’s movement has been so neglected; the film’s successful Kickstarter campaign; negative stereotypes of the movement; why certain people were offended by the film’s title, and much more.

The documentary scene is really tough right now.
It is. The docs that get most heralded don’t make any money. It’s shocking, isn’t it?

It is! Seeing all these great films go nowhere is pretty heartbreaking.
I know. We have a really great distributor, and that makes all the difference. I was so burned out from making the film for so long that there was no way I was doing the distribution myself. Some people do that, but I knew I didn’t have the infrastructure and energy to do it. I wanted the film to be widely seen. The culture we in now is so film festival-based. Film festivals decide whether your film is worthy or not. I wasn’t going to stand for that. We didn’t get into some festivals, which really ticked me off, but I didn’t take it personally because there are so many great films. I just didn’t want to be defined by, “well, if you’re not at Sundance, you’re not a worthy film.” We got into a lot of great festivals, but it’s like, if you don’t get into Sundance or Toronto or SXSW, you have no life. We didn’t get into any of those, but we’ve gotten rave reviews and we’re getting into more theaters than a lot of other films. Audiences really wanted to see it. Every time I showed it to an audience, the reception was really positive.

It’s a very entertaining film.
Thank you. It was meant to be. People think of historical documentaries as the “cod liver oil” of documentaries. I don’t feel that way. I think history is fascinating. And as a filmmaker, you want to make the movie entertaining, because you want people to feel it. A lot of the people who were in the era the film covers tell me that the movie feels like the era they were in, which is the biggest compliment I could get.

The film is really expansive. It covers a lot of the complexities of the movement.
We wanted to make it expansive because we wanted to show all of the distortions of the women’s movement and the amnesia about what it really was. You want to correct those understandings and you want to do a really detailed history. It was really important to show that there were all these different facets of the movement; it wasn’t just one monolith by any stretch. When people make history docs like this and they almost polish everything to a golden glow…I mean, who wants a nostalgic look back? I don’t see the point of that. Movements are complicated.

I can’t believe it’s 90 minutes long. There’s so much stuffed in there!
It’s really fast! [laughs] I had to leave out so many things that I wanted to put in. I had to cut stuff out because my goal was to make an entertaining, publicly accessible movie. At one point, a distributor was like, “This is great! I can sell this to all these women’s studies programs!” I thought, that’s wonderful, but I want to reach a broader audience. I figured 90 minutes was all I could do. There’s a lot of content in there. I had wonderful editors, too, including my producing partner Nancy [Kennedy].

We did it, and we’re really happy. Maybe at some point someone will give me a grant so I can get out of debt! That’s what I pray for on a daily basis. [laughs] We’re not going to make money on the theatrical release. It’s almost impossible for a doc to make money. If we break even we’ll be doing great, but it costs a lot of money to do a theatrical release.

I think it’s great that you’re doing a theatrical release.
I really felt this was a good film for theaters. There are other films that are better or more worthy, but they aren’t necessarily theater films. When you see this film with an audience, it’s so much better than seeing it on a screen. The audience reacts to everything. It’s really fun to have people around you moaning and groaning and laughing out loud. I think because of the nature and politics of the film it’s good for people to see it together.

With a lot of historical or political docs, there can sometimes be so much information jammed in there that things can get lost in all the noise. That doesn’t happen with your film, I think because the imagery is so striking and well-presented. When I saw W.I.T.C.H. I was like…I’m never going to forget that!
[laughs] That’s so hilarious! I didn’t know about W.I.T.C.H. until I researched them, and they were so hilarious. I wanted a lot of content in there because I’m not a fluffy filmmaker, but I do like to entertain people too, so that’s the balance we struck. The ignorance of the subject was so vast that it was important to put enough serious content in there. I’m a history nerd and an archival nerd. If you put a box of dusty documents that no one’s looked at in 40 years in front of me I’m like, “THANK YOU!”

What is it about that that interests you?
It’s like being a detective! You never know when you’re going to find something extraordinary. I’ve done a lot of archival films, and when I can I love to do the archival footage too. It feeds the story, and it’s really great to find stuff that hasn’t been seen before. I really love doing it. I think it’s the chase.

You had a pretty kick-ass Kickstarter campaign.
People were really nice to us. That was a lot of work. People are so romantic about Kickstarter. “It’s magic! I have a great idea! I’ll put it up, and I’ll get millions!” We did a lot of research before we started. We contacted every woman’s group we could think of to sort of pre-alert them. We didn’t  go into it blindly. I literally sat at a table for five weeks in my kitchen in my pajamas. I’d start answering emails at seven in the morning and finish around ten at night. Because of the nature of the film and how possessive people are of that history, it really affected them.

But people were also extraordinarily generous. There were people who emailed their entire kindergarten class to give me money. You know what I’m saying? All these amazing groups came to us, and they weren’t really official groups, just people who were jazzed about the film. We were lucky. We had over 1200 donors. That’s a lot of donors. The big kids in town make $70,000 and have 100 donors. They’re in a different class than I am! [laughs] I don’t come from that culture! But people started campaigns for us, which was amazing.

How does it feel to see people support your film in such great numbers?
It’s amazing. I’m shocked and amazed. As a critical filmmaker who’s been doing this for a long time, I look at the film and I see the 800 things I would tweak or do differently. But having worked on the film for such a long time, I just had this feeling that I had to finish it.

I read somewhere that you started filming in 2000. Really?
We did. I actually started writing grants before my kids were born, and they were born 21 years ago. In 2010 me and Nancy Kennedy started talking: “Why is this movie not happening?” Apparently the women’s movement is not considered a cool subject. What can I tell you? I couldn’t figure out why. We made a quick trailer to show people that it would be fun, and it was a great trailer. That’s when we got the title for the film. It’s from an old newsreel.

It’s the best title ever.
Isn’t it?! Some people were so mad at me about it.

Why?
Some feminists were upset because they thought it was trivializing. Some were very offended by the word “beauty” because they were against beauty standards. Others were offended by the word “angry” because women are always accused of being angry. I was like, don’t you get how many levels this title works on?! It’s so complicated. You don’t make social change without some anger. People who are living happily day to day don’t make change, because they don’t have to. People talk about the idea that it was a literal use of the word “beauty”, but what about the righteous beauty of anger when you have to make change? The film was never meant to be sentimental. I wanted it to be self-critical and outrageous and funny and upsetting, because the women’s movement was all of those things.

The women who drove the movement had no money, minimal resources, and were fighting this uphill battle against a society that treated them like they were less than human, basically. Is their fight a source of motivation as you campaign for your movie?
Well…it was my motivation for making the film. I felt that the women’s movement had been utterly disrespected and ignored, and it just killed me. I’ve seen hundreds of wonderful films on the civil rights movement and on the anti-war movement and on the gay rights movement. Why haven’t we seen any on the women’s movement? There have been a couple of good feature docs on women artists, but that’s not the women’s movement. That’s a section of it. I found out very quickly that no one wanted to fund a film about it because it wasn’t very “cool”.

The negative stereotypes of the women’s movement are that it was racist, homophobic, or bourgeois. All of those criticisms have validity, and we show that in the film. But to have that be the opening line is not accurate, because they were really aware of all those things. I mean, many in the women’s movement were active in the civil rights movement. It was that big, enthusiastic idea of, “We’re all women together!” It’s like, yeah, but we’re not all alike. That was a big mistake. But does that mean that they were totally racist? Of course not. They made mistakes, as does every other movement. Why is the women’s movement so denigrated when it was arguably the biggest social movement of the last century?

I asked Linda Burnham, who is in the film and was active for a long time with the Third World Women’s Alliance, “How racist was the women’s movement?” She just said, “Mary, we live in a racist country, and in that period, every movement had those same problems of dealing with race properly. So why is it only the women’s movement that gets the wrap?”

That’s a great question.
I don’t know what the answer is.

I need to share something with you. I grew up in a white community, and I never experienced any overt racism.
But you were still conscious, right?

I wasn’t. I’m almost 30 years old, and over the past couple of years, I’ve been thinking about my childhood more and asking myself why I’m not more angry about how I was treated. I think back now, and it’s like…there was a lot of racism going on! There was an eye-opening moment for me in your film where one of the women says something like, “We’re sensitive about this issue because so many people are insensitive.”
That’s Shulamith Firestone. She was a genius. She said, “We don’t like being sensitive about this issue, but we have to be, because how else are we going to change the consciousness?” She’s snapping her little fingers. It’s true. You don’t want to be bitchy, but what’s the choice? To passively accept it? Now, your parents must have done a really good job of protecting you, so you’re lucky. I mean, it’s not unlucky that they kept you safe and not depressed all the time! That’s good! [laughs] It forces a later acknowledgement. I’m French Canadian and I was aware from the earliest age of how I was looked down upon and treated badly. I grew up in Maine, where being French Canadian is the lowest of the low.

I didn’t know that!
Yeah, nobody does unless you’re from New England.

Some people ask me why I get so upset about some subtle forms of discrimination, and I never had an articulate answer. I had a great childhood, so I can’t say I grew up in misery! But I’m still angry about having been treated differently because of my ethnicity. Honestly, your film sort of lit a fire under my butt.
Subtle insults still hurt. It’s still bad. I wanted the film to be accessible to a lot of people. Obviously I care about the women’s movement, but I also care about a million other issues. I was hoping that the film would be accessible to other people about other issues. That’s what I wanted. To me, it’s a film about organizing. The women’s movement is obviously the core, but I think it’s useful today because every generation has a movement.

Throughout the ’90s and into the early 2000’s, Kathleen Hanna blazed a trail for young feminists everywhere, fronting the blistering punk band Bikini Kill and the dance-y electroclash band Le Tigre, and co-founding the riot grrrl movement. Her rousing music, unmistakable valley girl accent, striking good looks, and kick-ass attitude made her one of the most influential figures in punk and feminist culture for more than a decade. She was an unstoppable force of nature who beckoned with a roar for all girls to step up to the front at her concerts. Then, in 2005, she disappeared from the public eye without a peep. Sini Anderson, a close friend of Hanna’s, made The Punk Singer as both an adoring retrospective of the punk hero’s career and a revealing explanation as to why she left the music scene so abruptly.

Boasting an incredible bounty of archival material from Hanna’s early days in Bikini Kill, pasting together punk zines, hanging out with Kurt Cobain, and doing band interviews on ratty couches, Anderson captures Hanna’s ascent into rebel royalty with deep respect and adulation. Watching the raw, primal energy of a young Kathleen onstage, inciting raucous crowds with the word SLUT written on her stomach in permanent ink, contrasted with her soft-spoken, thoughtfully provocative early interviews, it’s no wonder Hanna drew so many lost youths into her world, her philosophy.

But the real power of the film comes in the third act, in which we’re given the answers to a fan’s question early in the film; “Why has she forsaken us? What did we do that was so bad?!” Turns out Hanna has Lyme disease, the effects of which she’s been battling for years. She wasn’t properly diagnosed until much later than she should have been, around 2011, and the worsening symptoms got so bad that they were virtually debilitating.

What’s so marvelous about this portion of the film is that as Hanna divulges more and more details about the deteriorating state of her health, she’s visibly uncomfortable, but keeps her chin courageously high. She’s so exposed, so vulnerable, so naked, and yet, she keeps her chin high. I truly believe Anderson is the only filmmaker on earth who could elicit such inspiring and breathtaking candor from Hanna, due to the trust they’ve built as longtime friends.

Without a doubt, the heart of the film is Hanna’s relationship with her husband, Adam Horowitz (Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys.) Anderson chronicles the story of their meeting (again, supported by fantastic archival footage of the young lovebirds) and conveys just how deep their love goes. The way they uplift and encourage each other to be strong is truly heartwarming; Kathleen recalls sharing and easing Adam’s nerves as he prepared to give his now-famous Woodstock speech at the 1999 VMA’s.

Adam returns her undying support with much love. In the most remarkable, moving clip in the film, he films Kathleen in their apartment in a moment when she’s “at her worst”, as the terrible symptoms of Lyme spike and wreak havoc on her body and mind, making her visibly distressed and panicked. With the footage she’s saying, “Look at me. If I can get through this, so can you.” It’s at once overwhelmingly inspirational, an exhibition of true love, and a captured moment that’s–quite simply–fucking real. So real it’ll bring tears to your eyes.

Anderson is clearly in awe of her dear friend, as are her myriad fans. The film caps off with a 2010 tribute concert to Hanna, in which several bands cover her music and she plays a set with her new musical endeavor, Julie Ruin. Hanna is shining symbol of feminist activism, ungodly perseverance, and artistic originality, and The Punk Singer captures her life and career to this point terrifically. Though she’s still afflicted with Lyme disease, Hanna’s legacy continues to march on, and her intrepid bad-assery shows no signs of slowing.

The Punk Singer, director Sini Anderson’s bracingly intimate portrait of her close friend, Kathleen Hanna, explores her life journey as a punk rock feminist in her early years (she was the frontwoman of both Bikini Kill and Le Tigre), writing punk zines (she’s the founder of the “riot grrrl” movement) and screaming for all the girls to come to the front of the stage at her shows, to her recent bout with Lyme disease and her disappearance from the public eye in 2005. Boasting an astounding collection of archival footage and revealing recent interviews, Anderson’s film gets to the core of what makes one of the most influential feminist figures of our time tick.

We chatted with Anderson about what makes Hanna such an important feminist figure, how she got her hands on so much archival footage, making lonely youths not feel so alone, Lyme disease striking the film’s production, and more.

The Punk Singer opens this Friday in San Francisco at the Roxie Theater. For more info visit thepunksinger.com

For our readers, maybe our female readers specifically, why do you think it’s important to know who Kathleen Hanna is?
I think that most young women could use a really strong, powerful, fashionable feminist in their lives.

Fashionable. That’s important, too.
Let’s be honest about it–a big part of why Kathleen’s feminism was able to reach so far was because she’s beautiful and she has great fashion. That’s the honest truth. She appeals to people on so many different levels, and when you get to her core message, it’s such an important message, you know what I mean? She’s also really giving permission to be political and have all this fun. It doesn’t have to be a drag and super serious all the time.

Aside from the film, how do you think people should be introduced to her work?
They should ask an older brother or sister if they have a mix tape of Bikini Kill somewhere. A Bikini Kill cassette tape.

Why this project and not the Le Tigre documentary you had planned?
I know Kathleen’s story because I’m a friend of hers. I feel really inspired by her story, and I felt like people–specifically women–really needed to hear the deeper story of who she is and where she came from, so that they could feel less alone. I think that we have a tendency–especially as women–to isolate ourselves even from our friends with parts of our lives. I think we keep our stories to ourselves. When people feel less alone, they’re more productive.

So you want this film to be a sort of companion for these girls or inspire them to do great things.
I just don’t want them to feel isolated because of the experiences they’ve had in their lives. I think that goes for young men, too. Why do they feel isolated? Because they think they’re a dork, or they’re queer…what is it that makes them feel less-than in the world? What most young people don’t know is that the ones who feel the weirdest are always the ones that end up the most successful and happy. You don’t know that when you’re young. You just feel like a freak and that no one can understand your experience. What better way than running into a story like Kathleen’s to make you feel less alone? You’re going to become more productive and the world’s going to become a better place. This is my philosophy. (laughs)

Alright! That’s amazing. I grew up in the ’90s, so the archival footage you have was absolutely amazing to me. For anyone who’s familiar punk culture at that time, you know that those guys weren’t big into filming themselves. Very anti-“selfie”.
Anti-documentation.

Right! How did you find this treasure trove of footage of Kathleen?
I didn’t find it. I got really lucky. When Kathleen said yes to the project, at that point she had already been gathering her materials for the Riot Grrrl collection at NYU. It was like winning the lottery! She and a couple of interns–all named Kate (laughs)–had been gathering all this footage from all over the place. Some people came out of the woodwork when they heard about the project. “I have a Hi-8 tape of a Bikini Kill show!” Kathleen had this footage gathered for her archive, but we didn’t know who shot it, so it’s been challenging tracking these people down. It’s cool-looking stuff.

It really is.
Here’s a fun fact: Some of the footage that’s in the film was actually shot by Corin Tucker from Sleater-Kinney before she was a musician. She did the Bikini Kill interview on the couch.

All that footage is amazing. But, it’s very rare in a documentary with a lot of archival footage like this one for the new footage to be as amazing if not more. The footage that Kathleen and Adam (Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys, Kathleen’s husband) shot themselves in their apartment blew me away.
Here’s the thing. Kathleen is the type of person that…if she’s having a shitty, isolating experience, if she makes it public, other people will benefit from it. A lot of our friends are like that. She’s willing to show the vulnerability of her illness to potentially be of service to other people. That’s the way we operate, and it’s a good mode of operation, I think. The fact that we have been friends for a long time helped with the interviews a lot. She was more willing to let the camera go on for longer, and I was able to ask her questions that were a little bit deeper. She was really generous with her story and her time.

I was going to ask you about that. At this time, do you think you’re the only person who could have made this movie?
No. But, I think it was supposed to happen.

She trusts you so much that she divulges more sensitive information than most documentary subjects would.
There was a sense of safety, and it’s really important to feel that sense of safety when you’re offering your story. It’s a huge responsibility, also. It freaked me out.

How so?
Here’s this person that you love and respect, and you have to figure out how to put their story together.

Let’s talk about that. You have all this great archival footage and footage you shot yourself. Talk about shaping the story in the editing room.
It went in a lot of different directions. Tamra Davis was the finishing producer who came on, and she really pushed it through to the end with our editor, Bo Mehrad. That, for the most part, was whipping all of that archival footage into shape. The other parts of Kathleen’s story–the danger she was in while she was in Bikini Kill, the illness–these things were really developed, but we were out of money, out of space, and dead in the water. I went to Tamra and said, “please!” She moved the edit into our house and sat with our editor and really took it to the end. I feel really lucky in that aspect.

The story shifted throughout making it several times. When we stared, I was like, “I know Kathleen’s story. I’m her friend, and I know exactly how I want to tell it.” Three months later, I was like, “I have no idea how I’m going to tell this.” Then, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease halfway through the production.

You’re kidding! So that happened during filming?
It changed everything. When she was diagnosed, I was like, “Oh, it’s Lyme disease. No big deal!” I thought she’d get over it really quickly. How bad could it be? Then, I ended up in the hospital with Lyme disease during the shooting. I was completely floored with the illness, and I saw her story in a completely different way. We both kind of picked up the pieces to finish the film. We were in treatment for a long time.

Does that fall in line with what you said earlier, about how the project was meant to be?
It sounds like a bad senior thesis. “You and your subject both have Lyme disease!” It’s an illness that people don’t think exists. It’s perfect for the film; you couldn’t make this shit up. So yeah, I felt like it was supposed to happen. it was very clear.

How important is it that the film is coming out now.
I think it’s the perfect time for it to come out. During the main year of production, feminism was in a real lull. When we started the process, there wasn’t a lot of activism going on at all. Within that year, the Pussy Riot stuff happened, the Sandra Fluke stuff happened, the Slutwalk in Toronto happened…all of these feminist things were popping up all over the place, and I was like, “Right. Perfect!” Now is the time to try to really invigorate the next wave of feminism. I think that more artists need profiles done about them mid-career. We don’t need to wait until they’re not here anymore, you know? It gives the rest of us energy to see their work, and it can also re-inspire the artist to continue to make their work. I’m a big fan of having the story not be the final story. This doesn’t have to be the last documentary about Kathleen.

When people think about feminism, they think about these strong, tough women who demand to be heard. Kathleen does exhibit strength in the film, but she exhibits it through vulnerability, leaving it all out there for us to see. Is vulnerability an important part of feminism?
Yeah, it is. It depends on where it’s coming from and who’s exhibiting it. Vulnerability, when you’re not completely grounded and safe, is not what you want to be going for. It can really, really work against you, especially as a woman. When you’re in a place where you’re a little bit more resolved, you have a good idea of what you’re dealing with with your personal issues, and you’re able to go out and be vulnerable and emote and still be okay, and the viewer doesn’t feel like they have to take care of you, that’s when it’s really powerful. That’s what Kathleen did here. We all know that she’s a complete ass-kicker and that she’s going to take care of herself, and she’s saying, “this is how hard it actually is, and I’m okay.” That invigorates other young women.

It’s really easy to think that everybody’s life is so great when you look on Facebook. People look at my Facebook page and go, “Yeah! Your life is so amazing right now!” and it’s like, “It’s Facebook, dude!” Life is hard for everybody. When we can see those parts that are difficult and see that the person is okay and made it through that, it gives us energy to get through our shit.