Rocks in My Pockets
Official Selection - Competition 2014 / Rocks in My Pockets / USA, Latvia 2014
This writer-director animated film by a Latvian director living in New York City serves up a highly personal statement of a woman struggling with an inherited illness. With humor and courage, the director sets out on a challenging journey to discover her family’s best-kept secret. Baumane is not only director, illustrator, and screenwriter, she also narrates this gutsy movie.
Synopsis
Latvia, the 1920s. Anna, a pretty and educated young woman, falls in love with an adventurous entrepreneur 30 years her senior. But with marriage comes jealousy, and the entrepreneur hides Anna away in the forest where she bears him eight children. Years later, Signe, a young artist, asks her father how her grandmother died.… This writer-director animated movie is a highly personal statement of the director’s struggle with an inherited illness. Set against the backdrop of her grandmother’s life, the first part touches on the difficult living conditions in Latvia during the Soviet and German occupations in order to focus on those members of the family suffering from the same affliction. Baumane is not only the director, illustrator, and screenwriter but also the film’s narrator, allowing her direct contact with the viewer. The filmmaker approached the gloomy and oppressive topic with detachment, hyperbole, and humor without diminishing either sincerity or urgency. Funny and bleak by turns, Baumane’s feature debut is the first animated film to compete in the main competition at Karlovy Vary.
About the film
88 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Signe Baumane
/ Screenplay Signe Baumane
/ Dir. of Photography Signe Baumane
/ Music Kristian Sensini
/ Editor Signe Baumane, Wendy Cong Zhao
/ Producer Signe Baumane
/ Production Signe Baumane Studio
/ Coproduction Sturgis Warner
/ Cast Hlas / Voice: Signe Baumane
/ Contact New Europe Film Sales
About the director
Signe Baumane (b. 1964, Auce, USSR), whose work has been shown to acclaim at numerous international festivals, is an independent film animator known for her controversial shorts about sex, pregnancy, dentists, and madness. After studying philosophy at Moscow University (1989) she landed a job at Riga Animated Film Studio in 1991 where she eventually shot her first animated short, The Witch and the Cow. Tiny Shoes (1993) and The Gold of the Tigers (1995) followed. The director then left for New York where, in 1996-2003, she worked for Bill Plympton’s animation studio. Other shorts include: Love Story (1997), The Threatened One (1999), Natasha (2001), Five Fucking Fables (2002), Woman (2002), Dentist (2005), Veterinarian (2007), The Beat of Sex: Episodes 1-3 (2007), The Beat of Sex: Episodes 8-11 (2008), Birth (2009).
Contacts
New Europe Film Sales
Puławska 152/5, 02-670, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 609 804 296, +48 600 173 205
E-mail: festivals@neweuropefilmsales.com
Guests
Jan Naszewski
Sales Agent
Signe Baumane
Film Director / Producer
Paulina Jaroszewicz
Sales Agent
Wendy Cong Zhao
Film Editor
Laura Pischek
Sales Agent
Dita Rietuma
Film Institution Rep.
