MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE

Directed by Signe Baumane
Latvia, USA, Luxembourg | 108 min. | 2022 | animation | English

From an early age, songs and fairytales convinced Zelma that Love would solve all her problems as long as she abided by societal expectations of how a girl should act. But as she grew older something didn’t seem right with the concept of love: the more she tried to conform, the more her body resisted. A story about the acceptance of the inner female rebellion.

Credits

Director: Signe Baumane
Screenplay: Signe Baumane
Cinematography: Signe Baumane
Editing: Signe Baumane, Sturgis Warner

Production Design: Signe Baumane
Sound Design: Pierre Vedovato

Cast: Dagmara Dominczyk, Michele Pawk, Matthew Modine, Cameron Monaghan, Stephen Lang, Trio Limonāde: Ieva Katkovska, Kristine Pastare, Iluta Alsberga

Production Company: Studio Locomotive, The Marriage Project LLC, Antevita Films
With support of: National Film Centre of Latvia, Film Fund Luxembourg, Kickstarter and other individual fundraising, Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, The New York City Women’s Fund for Media, Music & Theater, New York State Governors Office of Motion Picture & Television Development Office’s Post Production Credit Program, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

Signe Baumane
Latvia

Festivals & Awards

Tribeca IFF – Competition
Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2022
Guadalajara International Film Festival 2022
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2022
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2022
Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival

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Signe Baumane

Latvia

Signe Baumane, an independent animator known for her controversial films on the subjects of sex, pregnancy, dentists and madness, was born in Latvia in 1964. In 1983 Signe successfully passed exams to enter Moscow State University and study Philosophy. The one thing she learned in her five years of Philosophy study was that knowledge is relative: what you know to be the truth today can become a lie tomorrow.

In 1991 Signe was given an opportunity to direct her first animated short, THE WITHCH AND THE COW, a two minute story about a tiny witch trying to milk a humongous cow. When the film was finished Signe started to work as a freelance designer and illustrator with publishing houses in Moscow and Riga. She illustrated several children’s books and made sets for a puppet theatre. In 1993 she received another grant to make TINY SHOES, a personal fairy tale about a young woman who dreams to marry a prince, but has to live with a dragon instead. Eastern European film festivals recognized it as a bold feminist statement. In 1995 she received a grant for her next film THE GOLF OF THE TIGERS, a complicated tale of tigers who interchange dreams with reality and reality with dreams. With her first three films Signe developed her unique storytelling style – direct, head-on, unflinching – and pursued the subjects that she was most interested in: violence, power, womanhood, relationships between men and women. Her first films also showed her fascination with animals, which are a big source of her inspiration. In 1997 she applied for and received a green card as an Extraordinary Ability Alien in USA.

By that time she had saved enough money to make her first short on American soil: LOVE STORY. Between 1999 and 2009 Signe wrote and directed 11 more award winning shorts: THE THREATENED ONE (1999) produced by Pierre Poire of Italy, NATASHA (2001) coproduced and co-directed with Josh Rechnitz, FIVE FUCKING FABLES (2002), WOMAN (2002) produced by Rija Films in Latvia, DENTIST (2005), FIVE INFOMERCIALS FOR DENTISTS (2005), VETERINARIAN (2007) produced by Rija Films, THE VERY FIRST DESIRE NOW AND FOREVER (2007), TEAT BEAT OF SEX: Episodes 1 – 3 (2007) produced by Pierre Poire, TEAT BEAT OF SEX: Episodes 8 – 11 (2008) produced by Pierre Poire, and BIRTH (2009). In all of Signe’s work, the influences of Eastern European traditions like those of Stasys Eidrigevicius in illustration and Jan Svankmajer in animation are easy to spot. But her New York films have a new, specifically American sensibility with their accessible storylines, developed gags and outrageous humour.

FILMOGRAPHY
2014 Rocks in My Pockets, feature
2009 Birth, short
2007 Teat Beat of Sex: Episodes 8, 9, 10, short
2007 The Very First Desire Now and Forever, short
2007 Veterinarian, short
2007 Teat Beat of Sex, short
2005 Five Infomercials for Dentists, short
2005 Dentist, short
2002 Woman, short
2002 Five Fucking Fables, short
2001 Natasha, short
1999 The Threatened One, short
1998 Love Story
1995 The God of the Tigers, short
1993 Tiny Shoes, short
1991 The WItch and the Cow, short