Signe Baumane’s ‘My Love Affair With Marriage’ Out This Month on Blu-ray and DVD

MVD Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the film by acclaimed director Signe Baumane (Stones in my pockets) award-winning animated film My Affair with Marriage. The film stars Dagmara Dominczyk (HBO series) Inheritance, The Count of Monte Cristo), Matthew Modine (Oppenheimer, Full Metal Jacket), Michelle Pawk (Anastasia, The cradle will rock), Stephen Lang (Avatar, Don’t breathe) and Cameron Monaghan (Throne: AresShowtime Shameless), MVD plans its North American debut Bluray and DVD September 9th.

The action takes place against the background of historical events in Eastern Europe. My Affair with Marriage follows Zelma (Dominczyk) as she navigates a series of romantic encounters, each of which shapes her understanding of love and marriage. With unflinching honesty, she grapples with the opposing forces of passion and disappointment, her own desires, fears and insecurities, painting a raw and intimate portrait of the human heart. Told from a female perspective, the film weaves together historical, biological, social and emotional themes with a lively sense of humour and musical numbers, tackling issues of love, gender norms, domestic violence, fantasy and toxic relationships to propel one woman’s journey towards independence and liberation.

My Affair with Marriage premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2022 and has screened at over 110 film festivals worldwide, winning 25 awards. Director Signe Baumane recently completed a 24-city tour in the U.S., screening the film for audiences, hosting Q&As, and handing out original drawings from the film. The film, a co-production between Latvia, the U.S., and Luxembourg, was made over seven years and funded by nearly 1,700 individual donors, as well as grants from numerous arts and cultural institutions. According to writer/director Signe Baumane:

Animation is a time-consuming and labor-intensive medium for storytelling. For seven years, our teams worked on creating sets, photographing them, animating them, scanning 60,000 drawings, coloring them, and compositing them. After all that work, we were thrilled by how audiences responded to the film. Although set in a specific time and place, we discovered that the story of a young woman’s quest for ideal love and a lasting marriage resonated across cultures and genders around the world—that the question: Can you find love and be happy if you’re different? It’s a universal one.

Baumane embarked on a journey to complete filming with her life partner and producer Sturgis Warner (Mother’s Song), who said:

After seven years in production and nearly two years of traveling to theaters around the world, we are honored and excited to have signed a North American distribution agreement with MVD to bring the film to wider audiences.

Following 8 Above’s theatrical release in North America in fall 2023, company founder and CEO Jon Reiss introduced the film to Eric D. Wilkinson, Chief Acquisitions Officer at MVD Entertainment Group. Wilkinson said:

The moment I saw the film, I fell in love with it. The groundbreaking, original and traditional animation, the story, the music, the humor and the universal themes all resonated with me. This is an important and critically acclaimed film that film buffs must see, and I am proud to be able to share it with audiences this fall.

My Affair with Marriage not only delighted audiences, but critics as well. The New York Times “Critic’s Pick” called the film “extraordinarily beautiful.” The Hollywood Reporter said of director Baumane, “this portrait of the artist as a young woman is the work of an inspired filmmaker and well worth the wait,” and RogerEbert.com praised the film, saying, “Funny, moving and visually stunning.”

My Affair with Marriage produced by Signe Baumane, Raoul Nadalet, Roberts Vinovskis and Sturgis Warner, and executive producers are John Jencks, Adam Rackoff and Matthew Modine.

The deals were negotiated by Jon Reiss of 8 Above on behalf of the filmmakers and The Marriage Project, LLC, and Eric D. Wilkinson on behalf of MVD Entertainment Group.

BONUS MATERIALS

• Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Presents Filmmaker Signe Baumane on the Making of “My Affair with Marriage”
• Original theatrical trailer
• Optional subtitles in English, Spanish, French and Latvian

For more information about the movie My Love Affair With Marriage, visit myloveaffairwithmarriagemovie.comlearn more about the history of film by listening to our podcast interviews with Signe Baumane:

Intimate Animation: Season 2 Episode 1

Independent Animation: Episode 9