Maxi Cohen (b. 1949, Vineland, New Jersey, US) lives and works in New York, US. Cohen is an award-winning artist and filmmaker based in New York City, US. After graduating from New York University, Cohen directed and produced a weekly television series called AreYouThere? In Cape May, New Jersey, which was cited as the “first example of community interactive television” by the National Cable Television Association. In New York City, she became the director of the first public access facility in the country as part of the Alternate Media Center. At the same time, she set up the distribution system of Electronic Arts Intermix, now the largest distributor of video art in the world. She co-founded the Independent Feature Project and First Run Features, the first company devoted to distributing American independent films.
Cohen directed and produced Joe and Maxi, a feature-length documentary about her relationship with her father. That film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was theatrically released in 1980, is now in the Museum of Modern Art archives. Known for its groundbreaking, intimate form and content, Joe and Maxi was awarded a preservation grant for its 35mm print by the NYWIFT Preservation Fund. She participated in the omnibus feature film Seven Women Seven Sins, in which seven internationally acclaimed directors re-interpreted the seven deadly sins. For The Sin of Anger, Cohen interviewed people who answered an advertisement she placed in the Village Voice. In response to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, Cohen directed and produced South Central Los Angeles: Inside Voices. She gave video cameras to African Americans, Latinos and Korean Americans who lived in the areas most affected by the fires, vandalism and violence of the riots to learn about the depths of racism from a firsthand perspective. The documentary was the first film made about racism that included diverse factions and was the first made by real people. South Central Los Angeles: Inside Voices made its American premiere on Showtime and in Europe on France’s ARTE and Germany’s ZDF. In 1994, ZDF named it “Best Documentary in Series” for that year.
Cohen’s television work includes short films produced for Saturday Night Live, the Comedy Channel, MTV Networks, PBS, Children’s Television Workshop, and Fox Broadcasting. She has independently produced and directed shorts and feature-length documentaries, fiction and animation that have been broadcast on network, cable, public, and foreign television.
Her films, photographs and multimedia installations have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, US; Whitney Museum for American Art, New York, US; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, US; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Her films have played in movie theatres, film festivals and television around the world.
