World-renowned singer/songwriter/musician Ani DiFranco, groundbreaking director Dana Flor, and trailblazing producer Amy Hobby will attend the Michigan Theater on Wednesday, October 9, after the screening of the new documentary “1-800-On-Her-Own.” After the film, which starts at 7:30 p.m., DiFranco, Flor and Hobby will present a Q&A.
While DiFranco is primarily known for her strong following and support of women’s issues and the disenfranchised, Flor hopes that all kinds of people will attend her film’s premiere. Every person can be moved by the humanity and portrait of this extraordinary artist that the documentary deeply describes.
“As a filmmaker, you always want the broadest audience as humanly possible,” Flor said. “But I will say that the film has a very, very strong support from Ani fans. Ani’s north star as a musician and as an activist has always been feminism. She is a really strong supporter of women’s reproductive lives…so I think women involved with that…The LGBTQ community has always been strong supporters as well because Ani has always been a real strong supporter of the community. So those are the people that do come out. But I hope that everyone comes out. This is not a film exclusively for women at all. Ani has many fans that are men. And I think what I’m really excited about is the movie tends to really resonate with young people.”
Flor credits the subject matter of DiFranco’s life as one of the most compelling aspects of the film.
“I think Ani and her story is unique and I think she’s very likable,” Flor said. “But one thing that is utterly unique about her story is that she is very raw and she is extremely vulnerable. And she is grappling with a lot of things. It coincided that the filming of this documentary happened while Covid happened. And it also happened when Roe vs. Wade was overturned. So those were sort of seismic events in the nation that happened. But, it is also is a really, really raw, up-close and personal look at the creative process as well.”
Flor said something unique about this documentaty is that DiFranco did not have any creative control over the documentary.
“It gives a real portrait of what it means to be an artist. The good, the bad and the ugly of all of that,” Flor said. “I think you have some insights that other documentaries may not show you because often times when you are doing a documentary that is involved with a musician, they have a big hand at sort of scripting how that will look.”
The blend of very real moments with old footage makes for a riveting film.
“One of the things that Ani always says in her songs and as an activist and as a songwriter is that the personal is political,” Flor said. “And the personal aspects of Ani’s life have always been a big part of her music. It’s taken moments that a lot of women could really relate to. As a young woman, she wrote and sang about abortion and menstruation and rape and love and joy. But now, she continues to do that with her current experience. She is 55 I believe, she just had a birthday. She is a middle aged woman. She is verging on to menopause. She has two kids. She is married. She’s been married for 16 years. Now her struggles are different but the struggles she is grappling with are also universal.”
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As an artist and a woman around the same age, Flor sees great depth and commonality with DiFranco.
“The personal is political,” Flor said. “How do you be a full time mother and how do you work full time?… How do you maneuver marriage when you are verging on going on twenty years? All of these struggles I thought were really interesting and relatable. I also had the incredible blessing of having a monstrous amount of archival footage, that I decided to intercut, past and present. Because you can’t really decide who Ani is without knowing where she came from and all of the amazing things that she was capable of doing throughout the course of her very short life. Really, it is kinda amazing when you think about what she has been able to do. So I sort of veer between what she is going through today as a mother, artist, business woman, musician and guitar player, and then I cut back to when she’s younger.”
Flor said as a peer of DiFranco, she finds beauty in the passage of time and the physical and mental changes a person makes.
“I think that was super cinematic and also made for a really, really engaging story,” she said.
Flor also touched upon the naming of the film’s enigmatic title.
“’1-800-On-Her-Own’ is Ani’s 1-800 number, which is an actual number.,” Flor said. “You can actually call that number and you will reach usually, Buba, who mans the number and mails the merch. So the number was invented back when she started out. And it was kinda a joke but Ani did this amazing grassroots thing where she had a newsletter and a 1-800 number and that was how she started out.”
Many people who feel like they have persevered on their own will also reportedly find this film resonating.
“As you may or may not know, Ani was one of the first women to have her own record label,” Flor said. DiFranco is the founder of “Righteous Babe Records” created in 1990. Everything she did was extremely grassroots.”
As she reflected, Flor said working with DiFranco on the documentary was an amazing experience.
“It was really one of the joys of my life working with Ani,” Flor said. “She is fascinating. Like I said before, really raw and really uncensored. You really don’t get that with people a lot, especially with people who have been in the public eye. And Ani has been in the public eye since she was a teenager.”
Flor added that DiFranco, the film and the entire experience is about “compassion, connection, and community.”
“I think that today in the social media age that we live in, with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and everything that is going on, I think a real human that talks about real human things is super refreshing to people,” Flor said. “Not only that but her concerts are more than concerts. That was part of the appeal to me as a film maker is that when I got the chance to hang out with her and go to her concerts and talk to her fans. What you find over and over again is that people say ‘she changed my life.’ On some occasions, they would say, ‘she saved my life.’ She is so much more than a musician. She is so much more than an activist. She’s just a real change agent.”
For Ani DiFranco and those associated with the film, activism is also important.
“We are really hoping to inspire people to come out as activists,” Flor said. “Make sure they vote. Make sure they get their friends out to vote as well.
DiFrano is also hosting a fundraiser “Meet and Greet” in connection with the screening of her film. The event is a partnership with EMILY’s List and HeadCount to promote voting. To attend the event, email your name and city to anidifrancofilm@gmail.com if you want to be on the list for the event.
To purchase tickets online for the Michigan Theater premiere and Q&A. To catch her in town again, DiFranco is also performing in concert in April at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.
Donna Marie Iadipaolo is a writer, journalist, and State of Michigan certified teacher, since 1990. She has written for national publications like The Village Voice, Ear Magazine of New Music, Insurance & Technology, and TheStreet.
She is now writing locally for many publications, including Current Magazine, Ann Arbor Family, and the Ann Arbor Independent. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she graduated with an honors bachelor’s degree and three teacher certificate majors: mathematics, social sciences, English. She also earned three graduate degrees in Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Education Specialist Degree.
