Conversations with some of the animation industry's most celebrated independent creators.
Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based Signe Baumane is one of the most instantly recognizable voices in independent animation filmmaking today. Her provocative films on various narrative themes, including sex, the body, pregnancy, love, marriage and depression. Baumane’s films are unapologetically personal and told from a strong female point of view. For Baumane, animation is the perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories to incorporate different art forms. Her latest projects — the feature films Rocks in my Pockets and My Love Affair With Marriage — fuse animation with music, theatre, science, photography, lighting, papier-mâché stop-motion sets and traditional hand-drawn animation (inspired by Bill Plympton).
In this mutual fan-fest, Signe Baumane sits down with NFB darling Ann Marie Fleming, and discusses what drives her creativity, drives her crazy, and shares her love of all things animated.
SPEAKER
Signe Baumane
Writer, Director, Animator, Producer // Independent
(My Love Affair with Marriage, Rocks in My Pockets, Teat Beat of Sex, Birth)
The Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker, artist and animator Signe Baumane is known for her provocative films on an array of narrative themes including sex, the body, pregnancy, love, marriage and depression. Many of her films are unapologetically personal and told from a strong female point of view.
For Baumane, animation is a perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories. She is fascinated by the ability of animation to incorporate different art forms. Her latest projects — the feature films Rocks in my Pockets and My Love Affair with Marriage — fuse animation with music, theatre, science, photography, lighting, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation.
Signe is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Film, a three-time recipient of New York State Council on the Arts grants, and a two-time recipient of Jerome Foundation grants. Her 16 animated shorts have screened collectively at over 300 film festivals around the world including Berlinale, Sundance and Annecy. Her animated feature film Rocks in my Pockets premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014, where it received a FIPRESCI Prize. The film went to over 150 film festivals and had a theatrical release in the US through Zeitgeist Films. It continues to screen in colleges and mental health organizations.
Baumane’s new animated feature film, My Love Affair with Marriage, infuses music and science into a personal Love story. The film examines the biological chemistry of love and gender, as well as societal pressures on an individual to conform to the social mores of the times.
Website // Website // IMDb // Facebook // Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
MODERATOR
Ann Marie Fleming
Filmmaker // Independent
(Old Dog, Window Horses, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam)
Ann Marie Fleming is an independent Canadian filmmaker, animator and artist who works in a variety of different genres, mixing media, and often dealing with themes of family, history and memory.
AMF films' New Shoes: An Interview in Exactly 5 Minutes and Blue Skies both won Best Canadian Short at TIFF. You Take Care Now is on the TIFF Top 10 short films list of 150 essential Canadian films of all time. Her animated feature documentary, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam about her globe-hopping vaudevillian acrobat, magician and comedian great grandfather — is also a graphic novel that won the Doug Wright Award for Best Canadian Comic and was nominated for two Eisner Awards. Window Horses, which takes place at a poetry festival in Iran and stars stickgirl, her long-time avatar voiced by Sandra Oh, won Best Canadian and Best B.C. feature at VIFF and the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best-Animated Feature. Window Horses has been presented around the world, sharing its message of kindness, tolerance and peace through poetry.
Recent short films made with the NFB, include a portrait of LGBTQA+ activists and pop singers, Tegan and Sara, Question Period, which profiles recent Syrian refugee women’s experience in Canada, and Old Dog, which explores aging from both the canine and human perspective. April 2020 is her contribution to an artist series representing the lockdown in the early days of COVID.
She is currently finishing Corona Morphs, an animated/hybrid project for the Standing Wave Ensemble, trying to make music visible.
Website // IMDb // Facebook // Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
Conversations with some of the animation industry's most celebrated independent creators.
Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based Signe Baumane is one of the most instantly recognizable voices in independent animation filmmaking today. Her provocative films on various narrative themes, including sex, the body, pregnancy, love, marriage and depression. Baumane’s films are unapologetically personal and told from a strong female point of view. For Baumane, animation is the perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories to incorporate different art forms. Her latest projects — the feature films Rocks in my Pockets and My Love Affair With Marriage — fuse animation with music, theatre, science, photography, lighting, papier-mâché stop-motion sets and traditional hand-drawn animation (inspired by Bill Plympton).
In this mutual fan-fest, Signe Baumane sits down with NFB darling Ann Marie Fleming, and discusses what drives her creativity, drives her crazy, and shares her love of all things animated.
SPEAKER
Signe Baumane
Writer, Director, Animator, Producer // Independent
(My Love Affair with Marriage, Rocks in My Pockets, Teat Beat of Sex, Birth)
The Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker, artist and animator Signe Baumane is known for her provocative films on an array of narrative themes including sex, the body, pregnancy, love, marriage and depression. Many of her films are unapologetically personal and told from a strong female point of view.
For Baumane, animation is a perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories. She is fascinated by the ability of animation to incorporate different art forms. Her latest projects — the feature films Rocks in my Pockets and My Love Affair with Marriage — fuse animation with music, theatre, science, photography, lighting, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation.
Signe is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Film, a three-time recipient of New York State Council on the Arts grants, and a two-time recipient of Jerome Foundation grants. Her 16 animated shorts have screened collectively at over 300 film festivals around the world including Berlinale, Sundance and Annecy. Her animated feature film Rocks in my Pockets premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014, where it received a FIPRESCI Prize. The film went to over 150 film festivals and had a theatrical release in the US through Zeitgeist Films. It continues to screen in colleges and mental health organizations.
Baumane’s new animated feature film, My Love Affair with Marriage, infuses music and science into a personal Love story. The film examines the biological chemistry of love and gender, as well as societal pressures on an individual to conform to the social mores of the times.
Website // Website // IMDb // Facebook // Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
MODERATOR
Ann Marie Fleming
Filmmaker // Independent
(Old Dog, Window Horses, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam)
Ann Marie Fleming is an independent Canadian filmmaker, animator and artist who works in a variety of different genres, mixing media, and often dealing with themes of family, history and memory.
AMF films' New Shoes: An Interview in Exactly 5 Minutes and Blue Skies both won Best Canadian Short at TIFF. You Take Care Now is on the TIFF Top 10 short films list of 150 essential Canadian films of all time. Her animated feature documentary, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam about her globe-hopping vaudevillian acrobat, magician and comedian great grandfather — is also a graphic novel that won the Doug Wright Award for Best Canadian Comic and was nominated for two Eisner Awards. Window Horses, which takes place at a poetry festival in Iran and stars stickgirl, her long-time avatar voiced by Sandra Oh, won Best Canadian and Best B.C. feature at VIFF and the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best-Animated Feature. Window Horses has been presented around the world, sharing its message of kindness, tolerance and peace through poetry.
Recent short films made with the NFB, include a portrait of LGBTQA+ activists and pop singers, Tegan and Sara, Question Period, which profiles recent Syrian refugee women’s experience in Canada, and Old Dog, which explores aging from both the canine and human perspective. April 2020 is her contribution to an artist series representing the lockdown in the early days of COVID.
She is currently finishing Corona Morphs, an animated/hybrid project for the Standing Wave Ensemble, trying to make music visible.
Website // IMDb // Facebook // Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
