The Punk Singer is a 2013 documentary that explores the life and career of Kathleen Hanna, a musician and activist well known as a member of the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. The film was directed by Sini Anderson, an independent filmmaker known for her feminist views. Anderson traveled with Hanna for about a year, taking footage of her both on and off stage. The film features many important figures in Hanna’s life, including her bandmates, fellow activists, and husband. It premiered at the South by Southwest film festival and was greeted with largely positive critical response.

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, The Punk Singer will screen on Friday, Nov. 10, at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis, and director Sini Anderson will be in attendance. Ahead of the screening, Anderson spoke with The Current’s Jill Riley to talk about the film. Listen to the interview using the audio player above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You are listening to The Current. The Sound Unseen festival is happening now through November 12. A variety of films, a variety of documentaries, and what I love about the Sound Unseen Festival, it's a lot of documentaries and films around the topic of music. I love a good music documentary. Well, there's a screening Friday night, the 10th anniversary of a documentary called The Punk Singer. In fact, the director of that documentary, Sini Anderson, is going to be at the screening and doing a Q&A after the film. So The Punk Singer, well, The Punk Singer, it could be about a number of people, but it's about someone who is just long known as a feminist icon; really a forefront of the whole riot grrrl movement. And that would be Kathleen Hanna. So I'm looking forward to you know, finding out more about this film. It's the 10th anniversary screening of The Punk Singer, and I have the director with me, Sini Anderson. Hi, Sini, how you doing?

Sini Anderson: Hi, Jill, thanks for having me.

Jill Riley: Well, thank you for doing this and The Punk Singer documentary. Now, I wonder if we could start with, you know, this documentary and having Kathleen Hanna be your subject? You know, when did you first, I guess, meet Kathleen Hanna, or even before that, when did you become aware of who she was?

Sini Anderson: Right. So I guess, I kind of grew up as an artist in San Francisco in the '90s, which sounds like it could be a television show on its own, San Francisco in the '90s. But yeah, I moved there from Chicago, and I was kind of introduced in my very early 20s to a lot of queercore, punk, kind of that whole music and that scene. And I was doing something at the time called Sister Spit in San Francisco, which was an all-girl queer, open mic that went on to tour the country for like five years. So we were kind of, queercore and Sister Spit kind of paralleled to the riot grrrl movement in a lot of ways. It was a really supportive crossover.

So although I had not met Kathleen, of course, I knew about her, and other bands that were kind of dubbed riot grrrl bands were always really supportive and like sharing contacts. So yeah, there was like a recognition; I knew she was out there, I knew she was kicking ass. But I did not meet her until about 2005. And yeah, we became fast friends, we're both Scorpios, and so we hit it off and started hanging out, and a few years later, Kathleen was gauging some interest on my — she knew that I wanted to be making films, I was working as an assistant director — and she knew that I wanted to be making films; she asked me if I was interested in working on the Le Tigre documentary. And at that time, Kathleen's health was a major issue. She had had to leave music to try to figure out what was going on with her health. And those of us that knew her and cared about her, we're worried about her, really worried about her! And so when the topic of the Le Tigre documentary came up, I was of course, like, "I think Le Tigre is the most genius fan on the planet." I still do. But I was pushing Kathleen to tell her own story that would include that, but that it would encompass everything else. And so I said, "I think the most important thing you can do right now is to tell your story and not leave it for somebody else to tell later on."

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Sini Anderson: She said, "I'll do it if you direct it." And I said, "Great. Let's do it."

Jill Riley: Yeah. And so the documentary that came out of that is called The Punk Singer. I'm with Sini Anderson, the director of the documentary. It is screening Friday night at the Sound Unseen festival. That event is going on at the Trylon in Minneapolis. Sini Anderson will be in attendance for a Q&A. Now Sini, you mentioned Le Tigre. Now, I was doing college radio in the early 2000s, and so Le Tigre was actually my introduction to Kathleen Hanna. And, you know, I just I loved the band, and I loved kind of where that led me, you know, kind of into this kind of new world and this new genre of, you know, women making this incredible music.

Now, it wasn't long after that that it was like, well, you didn't really hear Le Tigre or, like I would hear the name Bikini Kill, but it's like, well, you know, I want to know more about her. And you kind of mentioned like that year 2005, where it seemed like things got kind of quiet. When you approach telling the story of Kathleen Hanna, did you kind of start with one idea? And how do you think that story evolved, and especially with when you were talking about some health issues that she was experiencing?

Sini Anderson: Yeah, I think that it did kind of go quiet around 2005. I think a lot of things were happening at that point, certainly for Kathleen personally; she was, like I said, dealing with a mystery illness she knew nothing about. She just knew she was getting sicker and sicker and sicker, and nobody could figure it out. Another thing that was happening in the scene at the time was, I think, some pretty heavy political depression coming out of the Bush years and trying to get out of the Bush years and the war, and things were just kind of going at a lull. A couple of years after that, when Kathleen and I started talking about the documentary, I always knew that I wanted to give her musical projects an equal measure time in telling her story in this documentary. But yeah, so I knew that Le Tigre was really important; it was, you know, part of her growing up as well, coming out of Bikini Kill that was just like informing so many young women and young men about feminist issues. And kind of the next iteration was Julie Ruin, her solo project, which was a lot more art heavy, a lot more synth music, it was kind of a little post punk. I kind of hate that phrase, but it was a little post punk and a little electric. And then, after that, going into Le Tigre, where she met Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning, it became clear that she was able to bring this really, really energizing, motivating music together with this incredible aesthetic and flair for art that was super smart. And that was nothing like I was seeing out there by any other band.

Jill Riley: Yeah. What is it like to, I guess, watch this documentary or kind of revisit the making of that film, you know, 10 years later for a 10th anniversary? Because it wasn't long ago that Bikini Kill was touring. And I think there's a real, there was a real resurgence in interest there.

Sini Anderson: Yeah, it's funny, because they think that the film is being introduced to a new — it's 10 years later — and it's being introduced to a new audience again, and there's all this interest coming up. And last summer, Le Tigre started turning again, right? So it's like, we know how popular culture goes: It goes like 20 years later, people are like, "Wait, what were you doing? Wait, that was really cool. Can we revisit that?" So Bikini Kill had its like couple of years of touring, and then the pandemic hit. And then it was like Le Tigre's turn to start touring. And my partner, my wife is actually Johanna Fateman, so it's fun to watch the film because we weren't together when I made the film. We were friends. So in rewatching it, that part's really fun, because I'm like, "Look how cute she is. It's ridiculous." So it's totally fun to rewatch! Yeah, and I think that it, it kind of holds up. I hear from a lot of people all the time that have just found the film and they're just like, "I can't believe I missed this. I'm so stoked to find it." So yeah, I'm really excited that the festival's bringing it and that we get to have a conversation about it. And I think that politically right now, things can look so, so, so bleak, that whenever there's art that we find motivating, we need to just embrace it and kind of lean on that to energize us. And I think this doc does a good job in doing that.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with director Sini Anderson, about The Punk Singer, the 10th anniversary screening during the Sound Unseen festival this Friday at the Trylon, the 10th anniversary of the release of this documentary about Kathleen Hanna. And you know what I love? You mentioned about this documentary getting introduced to a new audience, a new generation. Again, there's always going to be a next generation that is like, "Oh, wait; I don't know about Bikini Kill. I don't know about Le Tigre," but what I kind of love is introducing an audience maybe of young people who see feminism or activism in a different way than perhaps we saw it in the '90s and 2000s. You know, because it's really interesting to see those two different worlds. Like, it used to be you were out there and people saw you and you were out playing shows, and it was a lot of human interaction. Whereas today, you know, activism looks so different. I wonder if you could comment on that.

Sini Anderson: It does look really, really, really different. And, you know, I find myself actually scanning, wanting to see documentaries about activism in the early 2000s around the Bush era. Like, it's so mind blowing to think about at that moment, Bush was like, we could not picture anything more horrific than him, you know, we really couldn't. And he looks tame compared to what we've just been through, you know?

I feel like activism now, so much of it is online. And because so much is online, there's a direct line to find material of the people that are like a generation or two generations or even three generations older than you and see what they did, and then to be motivated by it, hopefully, and to add on to it. And then I also think that there's so much room for cross-generational collaboration. And I really feel like, you know, I think there's a little bit of a difference. I mean, it could be wrong, but Johanna and I have a 14-year-old, and she looks at our work, and it's not the same way that I was looking at, like, what my parents were doing, you know what I mean? Maybe it's delusional; I think she thinks we're a little bit cooler. But she is really motivated by that work. And she's — like, she goes to a right grrrl club at high school, which just kills me. She came home from school, it's like, "Oh, we're going to the riot grrrl club, I'm going to start doing that." I'm like, "Amazing! That's great."

But yeah, this is a moment where we need to intergenerationally, cross culturally, internationally, pull together and lean on each other. And I'm certainly there for younger generations of activists, and I hope they call on us. And I'm certainly there, and I know so many others are, to show up to their art, and to see what they have to say, because no doubt, they're smarter than we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, because the knowledge keeps on growing. So I mean, it's bleak. It's a bleak time, but it can also be a really exciting time.

 Jill Riley: Yeah, the subject of this documentary can ... the I mean, really like the name I just, I can't say Kathleen Hanna without saying "riot grrrl movement"; again, feminist icon. But the question is, how much do you really know about Kathleen Hanna? We know her on these like, very like iconic levels, but to get to know who she is? Well, that is the subject of the documentary The Punk Singer, the 10th anniversary screening Friday at the Trylon in Minneapolis. Director Sini Anderson will be in attendance, and bring your questions because Sini will be there for the Q&A after the screening. Sound Unseen runs through November 12, and there are plenty of events and films and music documentaries to take in. You can check out more information when you just Google Sound Unseen. Director Sini Anderson, director of The Punk Singer documentary. Sini, we look forward to welcoming you to our town, to the Twin Cities, and look forward to seeing you when you're here.

Sini Anderson: Thanks for having me, Jill. Can't wait to get there.

Jill Riley: You are listening to The Current.

External Links

Sound Unseen Film Festival – official site

The Punk Singer – official site