This film is by the best of the black American directors, and one of the better directors of the modern American cinema itself. He is Charles Burnett. It’s very possible you haven’t heard of this film, and even more likely - unless you’re French or a devotee of Cahiers du Cinéma - that you haven’t heard much about Burnett, although he was a guest of the London Film Festival several years ago. To Sleep with Anger is Burnett’s third feature, made in 1989, and given a limited release in the United States the following year.