Nov. 11 marked the opening weekend of the 2023 Saint Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF). SLIFF is one of the longest-running film festivals in the midwest, attracting filmmakers, industry professionals and film enthusiasts from around the world. This is the 23 annual year of the festival, which typically showcases a diverse selection of films, including feature-length films, documentaries and shorts.
The festival’s programming often includes a wide range of genres and themes, covering topics from international cinema to independent and experimental films. One of the films shown this weekend at the Hi-Pointe Theater was the 2022 independent, animated feature “My Love Affair With Marriage” by Latvian director Signe Baumane.
“My Love Affair With Marriage” follows the main character, Zelma, on her 23-year journey for perfect love and lasting marriage set against a backdrop of historic events in Eastern Europe. Zelma experiences the ebb and flow of love, finding and losing it multiple times before ultimately uncovering her true identity shaped by her upbringing in the Soviet Union, and the societal demand and expectation to act as the ideal woman. Told from a woman’s point of view, the film blends historical, biological, societal and emotional arcs with a spirited sense of humor and thought-provoking musical numbers. This animated film for adults showcases various topics and issues such as gender norms, domestic violence, cultural expectations, girlhood fantasies and toxic relationships, that shape Zelma’s journey toward independence and liberation.
SLIFF presents awards in various categories to recognize outstanding contributions to filmmaking. Before the screening on Nov. 11, Baumane accepted this year’s Women in Film Award. Baumane is the sole writer, director, designer and animator of this feature film. She animates in the traditional method- pencil on paper. To create the film, Baumane crafted Zelma’s world by overlaying 2D line-drawn characters on meticulously constructed 3D paper-mâché dioramas. This animation style is a nod to Baumane’s Eastern European heritage and works incredibly well with the setting and time period of the film.
The film, a Latvia-USA-Luxembourg co-production, took seven years to make and was financed with the help of 1,685 individual donors and grants from many arts and cultural institutions. Baumane’s style combines her background’s aesthetic values and American sensitivities to realism. “My style is a blend of my Eastern European roots of metaphor and surreal imagery and a more literal, humor-oriented American sensibility. ‘My Love Affair With Marriage’ is a unique combination of both,” Baumane said.
“My Love Affair With Marriage” explores the complexities of relationships, love, sex and marriage from a woman’s perspective, using unique elements that drive the plot and personalize the narration. Zelma’s conception of marriage and love is not only shaped by her upbringing and society’s demands, but also by three singing mythological sirens that press misguided ideas of marriage and virtue onto Zelma during her childhood. Throughout the movie, Zelma compares her inner, unconventional persona to that of a cat; she has many spats with that cat, some humorous and some much more serious. The audience is visually walked through the science of what happens when someone falls in love, is rejected, builds a new habit, or grows dependent on another person, as viewers watch how Zelma’s brain makes sense of the world around her, shown through craftily animated sequences of neurotransmitters and synapses.
The film tells a story about being a woman, and how the institutional expectations of a woman’s role in marriage affect women’s journeys toward freedom and self-acceptance.
“My Love Affair With Marriage” will be available on North American video-on-demand platforms in 2024.
