Seven women, seven sins

Duration: 120 mi

Year Published: 1986

Creator: Maxi Cohen

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This omnibus project bringing together the work of seven women directors from around the world was conceived in response to a question posed by the German Television Network, ZDF: What constitutes a deadly sin in this day and age, and how do you approach such a subject? 1) Gluttony (Voellerei? Futtern) by Helke Sander, West Germany. Eve discovers the rapture of the apple and offers it to Adam, thus committing the original sin. Told in studio-bound cartoon style, this tale serves as an allegory for the contemporary male/female relationship. 2) Greed (Pay to play) by Bette Gordon, U.S. Three women have a strange, claustrophobic encounter in the ladies room of a luxurious Manhattan hotel. Set in a twilight zone where objects bear a menacing aura, and seemingly harmless conversation carries a threatening subtext, this segment concerns greed, avarice and the victimization of women in a consumer society. 3) Anger by Maxi Cohen, U.S. Cohen put an ad in the Village Voice for angry people. After close to a hundred calls, she interviewed and selected a group of unusually and supremely angry people. 4) Sloth (Portrait d'une paresseuse) by Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France. Akerman pushes the phenomenon of laziness to its utmost. She tries to get out of bed to shoot this segment on sloth. 5) Lust (Ein perfektes Paar oder die unzucht Wechselt ihre haut) by Valie Export, Austria. Export's approach is translated in modern terms via a music video about sex and consumerism. 6) Envy (Il Maestro) by Laurence Gavron, France. Gavron demonstrates that jealous feelings are useless in this story of a man, the nephew of the theater director in a small town, who envies the work of the conductor, one of his uncle's employees. 7) Pride (Superbia) by Ulrike Ottinger, West Germany. An allegorical triumphant procession in operatic styles is intercut with modern military parades of every bizarre form. (Does not circulate)