The Fifth Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns in 2022 as a hybrid festival with both in-person and virtual screenings on November 2-13! From November 2 through 6, in-person screenings and events will take place at Scandinavia House in New York, presented in accordance with new COVID-19 safety guidance and protocols. Following the success of last year’s festival, the online version will once again be available to viewers all across the U.S. via the Elevent streaming platform November 4-13.
Streaming on November 4 through November 13, see Rocks in My Pockets (Akmeņi manās kabatās, dir. Signe Baumane, USA/Latvia, 2014, Narrative). In Latvia in the 1920s, Anna 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… An animated feature that is a highly personal statement about the director’s struggle with depression, Rocks in My Pockets is set against the backdrop of Baumane’s grandmother’s life, with the first part touching 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 inherited illness.
Without ever becoming insincere, the filmmaker approaches the gloomy topic with color and humor.
This film will only be offered as a virtual screening. Tickets to this event must be purchased in advance online at the link above.
About the Director
Signe Baumane is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts but is best known for her first animated feature Rocks in my Pockets, which premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014. Baumane’s new animated feature My Love Affair With Marriage fuses animation with music, theater, science, photography, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation.
Baumane is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow in Film for New York Foundation for the Arts. She has a degree in Philosophy from Moscow State University.
About the NYBFF
Established in 2018, the New York Baltic Film Festival is presented and organized by Scandinavia House in collaboration with the Consulate General of Estonia, Consulate General of Lithuania, and Daris Delins, former Honorary Consul for Latvia in New York and founder of the festival.
Financial support for the festival comes from the Estonian Film Institute, National Film Center of Latvia, Lithuanian Film Center, and the Edhard Corporation with additional sponsorship by the Estonian American National Council, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Lithuanian Foundation, Consulate General of Estonia in New York, Embassy of Latvia in Washington D.C., Permanent Mission of Latvia to the U.N. in New York, Consulate General of Lithuania in New York, American Latvian Association, Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the PBLA Culture Fund, and Sondra Litvaitytė.
Organizers & Sponsors
