This Too Shall Pass
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Italy
Lanugage: English
Runtime: 3:55
Category: Love
Screening Date: January 31, 2015
Is it possible to be simultaneously ecstatic and miserable? Will this
moment ever end? How I wish it would last forever. This Too Shall Pass
is an animated short that takes an honest look at the extreme highs and
lows of parenting young children in the 21st century.
Using 2D digital painting techniques as well as rotoscoped home
movies, animator Kristen Palana tries to come to terms with her
conflicting feelings about the joys and hardships of parenting two
spirited boys in a foreign country. The animation is a reflection on
motherhood, initially based on a poem that Palana scrawled in her
journal while dealing with postpartum depression when her sons were two
months and two years old. She tries to capture the extreme mood swings,
longings, epiphanies, and anxieties that often color the lives of new
parents who have been catapulted out of their comfort zones into a
strange but also wonderful new existence.
Director: Kristen Palana
Kristen Palana is a multimedia
artist and educator based in Rome, Italy and is currently a tenured
Associate Professor of Digital Media at The American University of Rome
where she also runs its Film and Digital Media Program. She has fourteen
years of university teaching experience in Rome as well as in and
around the NYC area.
Kristen is a dual American/Portuguese citizen and has offered art and
multimedia courses in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Her work
is exhibited internationally and online and has received a number of
awards. Kristen received her MFA from Pratt Institute in Computer
Graphics and Interactive Media and also holds a BFA in Painting from
Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Previous animations and video shorts include "Veggie Propaganda"
(2011) an animated music video with a quirky message about animal rights
that screened in 14 international festivals and won 6 Best Animation
awards, "Larry & Roz" (2008) - a fine art animation about one
couple's six decade relationship which screened at 25 international film
festivals and won five Best Animation awards, "Lucky" (2006) -a
documentary about one Indian American girl's arranged marriage and
"Yellow Ribbons," (2004) -a stop motion animated political ad created
for Moveon.org. Her multimedia animation about her experiences in
Brooklyn and India, "Five O'Clock Shadows," screened in international
animation and film festivals in 2002 and 2003. Excerpts and stills of
her work can be found at her website at: http://kpalana.com.
She has lived and worked in Ireland, Scotland, India, Tanzania,
Liberia, and Italy. Traveling and volunteering in developing countries
rank among her biggest interests. Kristen lives with her husband Michael
and two sons, Lukas and Nico in Rome, Italy.
Director’s Statement
This Too Shall Pass began as a
harried “poem” scribbled in my journal one gloomy February afternoon in a
crowded Subway sandwich shop in the center of Rome when I was able to
snag a babysitter and get my first ever one hour break in over two
months. Not having really enough time to sleep or do anything exciting
or of consequence, I huddled over my American chocolate chip cookie,
wondering why I ever thought it would be a good idea to have babies in a
foreign country thousands of miles away from any family who could have
lent a bit of emotional support. With wintery weather, no car, and most
of my friends working during the day, it proved to be an isolating time
to say the least.
I wasn't the stereotypical “bitchy” pregnant woman that sitcoms
lovingly poke fun at to the sounds of canned laughter. However something
DID happen chemically within me when my baby was born and I began
nursing that amplified my negative emotions and robbed me of most of my
happy ones. This was my second time experiencing a case of “mild”
postpartum depression, and yet being mentally prepared for the turmoil
the second time around proved to be of little comfort. I also found
myself becoming hyper-sensitive to judgmental comments about my children
from strangers and family alike, ie: the people who were supposed to be
the most supportive.
I began working with the little poem as a sort of voiceover to an
animation that I wanted to be about my ever-changing emotional state. I
also wanted to show that despite my inner turmoil at the time, I really
DO love my children and thus, the animation also became a reflection on
how slowly and quickly time passes as well as on motherhood itself.
Even though I'm a working mother with a hectic job as a University
Professor, my identity has always been rooted in the fact that I'm an
artist and I make things. Being able to work on this animation a little
bit day by day (when I actually could) was cathartic and healing.
Through animating and the passage of time, I slowly began to feel
somewhat human again. Most of the multimedia work that I tend to do aims
to promote positive social change. This Too Shall Pass as well as Larry
& Roz (2008), created after my beloved grandparents passed away,
are different because they were made to heal my own emotional pain as
well as somehow affix loved ones in an animated time capsule of my own
making.
Two plus years later I still live in Italy but times are much better.
My gorgeous and brilliant sons are almost three and five respectively.
They won't understand or even be able to watch This Too Shall Pass in
its entirety until they are older, but my hope is that it will someday
mean as much to them as it does to me.
Grace believes that the sacred stories in the Bible help shape our lives
and faith, but God's work did not end on the last page of this text.
Our lives and stories are a continuation of these sacred stories. Here
are some of the photos and stories of those who have been a part of the
community of saints at Grace Lutheran in San Francisco.
