Looking for Something to See at Tribeca? Latvian Filmmaker Signe Baumane Offers The Deeply Feminist Animated Feature 'My Love Affair with Marriage'

By Jessica Chen

Director Candy Kugel and animator Signe Baumane attend The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "2019 New Members Party" at the Top of the Standard in New York on October 1, 2019 in New York City. — (Photo : Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences)

Yesterday, the New Europe Film Sales YouTube channel dropped the international trailer for Latvian filmmaker Signe Baumane's deeply feminist anime feature My Love Affair with Marriage. In the two-minute long trailer, we see a young girl struggle with the societal pressures and expectations directed toward women when it comes to falling in love and ultimately, marriage.

According to Deadline, My Love Affair with Marriage:

"centers on Zelma who, from an early age, was convinced by songs and fairytales 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. The film is about the acceptance of the inner female rebellion."

Baumane said about the film, "By wrapping my personal story around scientific findings, I was hoping to help women examine their own intimate relationships."

Drawn in a flat, and slightly unsettling art style, Baumane's film invites us to consider how a young woman's development can be affected by their brain chemistry and how this intersects with what happens to a person's body when they fall in and out of love.

The impressive voice cast includes Dagmara Dominczyk from Succession, Stephen Lang from Avatar, Matthew Modine from Stranger Things, and Cameron Monaghan from Shameless. The film, an independent Latvian - USA - Luxembourg co-production, took six years to make and was financed with the help of 1,685 individual donors along with grants from arts and cultural institutions.

My Love Affair with Marriage will have its World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival on June 11, 2022 as part of its International Narrative Competition. Other showtimes can be found here.

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