The Naked Truth: Animation of Signe Baumane

Who is Signe Baumane?

Signe Baumane was born in Latvia. As a teenager, she published stories, essays, and poems in the local newspaper. After high school, she entered the Philosophy Department of Moscow State University.

After college, Signe returned to Riga and immediately found herself in the film industry. She worked at the Riga Animated Film Studio as a costume designer while illustrating children’s books and designing scenery for the puppet theater in spare time.

Soon Signe’s creativity was noticed – then, with governmental support, the young artist could finish her first three short films. That was the end of Latvian period in Baumane’s life, and she went to New York in search of inspiration and new opportunities.

Quickly, Signe Baumane found recognition in America as well. Already in 1998 she had her own film studio and many awards: scholarships from the prestigious New York Film Academy and Guggenheim for “exceptional creative potential”, as well as two grants from the Jerome Foundation, which supports emerging filmmakers.

Throughout her career, Signe has directed and animated 15 short films and two feature films.

What’s so special about Signe’s animation?

The Latvian artist’s work is very unusual: in her films she skillfully combines animated three-dimensional papier-mâché figures with traditionally drawn animation. It’s hard to call Signe’s work aesthetically beautiful or detailed. She draws schematically, with figures of the characters and their surroundings seeming more like children’s drawings. Her animation is full of visual metaphors and surrealistic images.

But the themes raised by Signe are not at all childish. Her films are very frank and sometimes cruel, because they show the naked, uncovered truth. The characters in her films are mainly of female gender. They are all different and real: good and evil, shy and lustful, smart and silly. For Signe, women are not victims, suppressed in society by overbearing and manipulative men. They are equal and can be as contradictory, aggressive and vulgar as any man. Signe creates feminist cinema, trying to debunk the myth that women are more innocent and weaker than men.

Female Aggressor

A whole series of films by Signe Baumane deals with aggression and manifestation of women in the modern world. She already raised this problem in her first film in 1991 and continued to develop it further.

In the short mini-series “Teat Beat of Sex” (2007) she very openly demonstrates the female attitude towards sex and sexual problems throughout fifteen episodes.And the frankness and courage with which she shows different perspectives on pregnancy and childbirth in “Birth” (2009) is stunning. Negative representations of motherhood are nothing new in contemporary cinema, but such sharpness towards “indigenous” women’s values and lifestyles and the director’s criticism of it is surprisingly pleasant, while still tacitly agreeable to the audience.

“Rocks in My Pockets.”

Signe’s first feature film was released in 2014. In this film the artist addresses on problem of suicide and the fight against depression. This film is partly biographical, as the story is based on her own experiences as well as the memories of five other women.Starting with the first shots, viewer is taken back by main character’s calm and mundane monologue about her own suicide. In her family, women have been suicidal for three generations. The heroine is faced with a dilemma: Is the conscious urge to die something that is inherited as an eye or hair color or is it some sort of obsession caused by life’s difficulties. “Rocks in My Pockets” is the filmmaker’s attempt to answer the question, is our own being dependent on family genetics, or is it possible to rewrite the DNA that is embedded in us? Despite the seriousness of topic, artist does not lose her sense of humor (black and twisted). Sarcasm and irony are Signe’s signature through all her films.

Animation in cinema nowadays

At the IX Riga Film Festival, the second feature film “My Love Affair With Marriage” opened the main competition program of innovative cinematography. It also won the jury prize in this category. In this moving picture, Signe once again remains true to herself and continues destroying the “rules” governing over women’s life.

The main character Zelma, who grew up during the Soviet era, is well aware of the immutable commandments: no sex before marriage, girls wear skirts, the husband is in charge of the family, the wife’s place is in the kitchen and much more. But what if the body chemically and biologically resists such a way of life?In this movie Latvian director, in her own characteristic manner, talks about the destruction of stereotypes limiting women. Today the film may be seen in most cinemas of Riga: Splendid Palace, Kino Bize and Forum Cinemas.