
Karmic Knot is an independent animated feature film for grown-up audiences by
Signe Baumane
and follows the success of her first two animated features
Rocks In My Pockets (2014)
My Love Affair With Marriage (2022)
(Click image for trailer and website)
ABOUT KARMIC KNOT
As the country around them collapses in chaos and violence,
a tight-knit family swaps their dreams for survival and profit,
but the ambitions of one of them puts the family knot in danger.
Karmic Knot is in production and will premiere in 2028.
The film is a Latvian / USA co-production
and is being supported by
grants, foundations, and
individual backers - people like YOU.
The Family Members of Karmic Knot:
and
36 top New York and Latvian Theater actors
in supporting roles.
See announcement of the Karmic Knot cast in Variety
THE STORY
Karmic Knot tells the epic tale of a family trying to survive in occupied Latvia from the 1970s to early 1990s. The family bargains, compromises, and ingeniously builds their own world, insular from the political reality. When the Soviet Union starts to collapse and shatters their world, the family aspires to rebuild it even more insular than before. One family member, however, has ambitions.
Karmic Knot is a mixture of drama, comedy and horror.
FROM DIRECTOR SIGNE BAUMANE
"I believe that animation is the best medium to tell this complicated story, where each point of view or character’s inner thoughts can be represented in different visual styles. The film will employ a variety of animation techniques including stop motion, traditional animation and CGI 3D."


Ansis, Father, 33
Vizma, Mother, 29

Ragne, 5

Ragne, 22

Kaspars, Son, 5
SUPPORT FOR KARMIC KNOT
Production began in 2024. It is a 5-year process. The film has co-producing partners and teams in Latvia that received funding for their part of the process, but in the U.S. financing is needed for the Brooklyn studio where the following is created:
-
designing and building background sets
-
papier-mâché-ing and painting sets
-
lighting and photographing sets
-
animating the characters
-
shading and scanning the animation drawings

Zinta, Sister, 7
Through the non-profit fiscal sponsor Filmmakers Collaborative
THE CHALLENGE
Like Signe’s other films, Karmic Knot is an independent animated feature that defies commercial formulas and pushes the boundaries of visual storytelling, taking creative risks that commercial productions are not willing to take. We do not work with investors, so here’s the challenge: with grant money scarce and the animation process so time and labor consuming how do we keep working without interruption for the next five years and premiere the film in 2028?
YOUR SUPPORT
Your donation will allow Signe to continuously animate, pay rent on the Brooklyn studio, and make it possible to hire three young artists full time. After graduating, many talented young artists struggle to find viable ways of establishing themselves in the animation industry. Our studio, along with your support, aims to help a few of them.
DETAILS
Five-year budget: $2,500,000
Secured so far: $1,000,000
U.S. Producing Company: The Marriage Project LLC
Latvian Producing Company: Studio Locomotive
U.S. Non-profit Fiscal Sponsor: Filmmakers Collaborative
All income from Rocks In My Pockets
and My Love Affair With Marriage
goes into the making of Karmic Knot.

Zinta, 25

Esme
Background sets for Karmic Knot built, painted, lit and photographed:


DIRECTOR SIGNE BAUMANE ON THE ORIGINS OF KARMIC KNOT
One overcast morning in the midst of the pandemic, I was looking outside the kitchen window of my Brooklyn studio when a familiar feeling hit me: the world-as-we-know-it was ending. It was not just the first-world problems that made me feel this way - the undelivered or stolen packages, or the impossibility of getting toilet paper. People had become terrible drivers. During each of my late-evening walks someone always nearly ran me over going through their red lights. Traffic rules didn’t matter anymore. Everybody was following their own rules. Never before the pandemic had I seen people smoking in subway cars. Now it seemed to happen every time I took the subway. The social contracts we had with each other were collapsing.
This was familiar to me. In the 1990’s I had lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union. Standing in my kitchen I thought I should revisit what my Latvian family and I experienced as the Soviet Union crumbled, throwing Latvia into social turmoil. Perhaps, I thought, this story might be relevant to some of the issues we are going through today.
It took a long time to write the script of Karmic Knot - partly because it’s an epic story spanning 25 years, and partly because of the challenges of turning a personal story into compelling drama.
Also, aside from the eight family members, there are 50 other speaking characters in the film, and each comes with their own unique perspective. In the end, I wrote the best script I have written so far.
I believe that animation is the best medium to tell this complicated story, where each point of view or character’s inner thoughts can be represented in different visual styles. The film will employ a variety of animation techniques including stop motion, traditional animation and CGI 3D.
THE WORK
Summer / Fall Interns



In the Brooklyn Studio






















KARMIC KNOT
Running Time: 100 minutes
Medium: Animation
Completion: 2028
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer
Director
Animator
SIGNE BAUMANE
Composer
KRISTIAN SENSINI
U.S. Casting Director
Head Carpenter
Lighting Designer
STURGIS WARNER
Latvian Casting Director
ANETE UŠČA
Head of Coloring
ANETE MATVEJEVA
Head of Compositing
GEORGS HARIJS ĀVA
PRODUCING TEAM
DOMINIKS JARMAKOVIČS - Latvia
ROBERTS VINOVSKIS - Latvia
STURGIS WARNER - United States
SIGNE BAUMANE - United States
THE FULL CAST
Patrick Wilson
Dagmara Dominczyk
Gracie Lawrence
Emma Kenney
Stephen Lang
Matthew Modine
Erica Schroeder
Jay O. Sanders
Vadims Grossmans
Laila Robins
Michele Pawk
Rodion Kuzmin
Andrew Garman
Steven Boyer
Jurijs Luniks
Keith Randolph Smith
Juris Djakonovs
Andres Munar
Armando Riesco
Marylouise Burk
Zane Daudziņa
Brian D. Coats
Ritvars Toms Logins
Chris O'Connor
Cindy Cheung
Anatolijs Fečins
Anna O'Donoghue
Crystal Finn
Stephen Hauck
Juris Kalniņš
Florencia Lozano
Myra Lucretia Taylor
Greg Keller
Najla Said
Lauris Reiniks
Kasjan Wilson
Jānis Biezais
Kate Forbes
Mārtiņš Šmits
Kelly McAndrew
Irina Krasta
Sturgis Warner
Signe Baumane









