Anima

While working on my Ph.D. in Jungian Psychology I spent most of my time at Carnegie Mellon University listening to lectures from international film directors and dreaming of going to film school which I finally did many decades later. My main focus and vision in all of my work is exploring the "Twilight" world between nature and culture, male and female, life and death, night and day, joy and sorry, laughter and grief, creativity and madness...We are living in a great time of crisis in nature and culture today - and we need new stories to heal us and guide is into a healthier relationship with nature and each other - this is my mission as a filmmaker. Anima, explores a theme near and dear to my heart. After 30 years as a Jungian psychologist a great focus of my work was exploring the inner sacred marriage to our own soul's. Without plot spoiling - I wanted to explore a different way of how we maneuver despair and meaninglessness in a way similar, yet quite different then in my film The Cliff. I was also interested in exploring the opioid and suicide epidemic - but with a very different answer then we usually receive. I kept asking myself what is the deeper reason people become addicted to drugs that numb?? What is missing??? Perhaps a deeper connection to our innate joy? Our innate creativity? Our soul?? Anima means soul in latin - it is also the root word of animate - that is what brings us alive!! Anima is my small attempt to help us all open up the discussion about these serious challenge before us. Having been suicidal myself I find it so important to find ways to open the door to sharing and letting go of the shame that comes with feeling suicidal. We know those who are able to talk about it are much less likely to act. Thank you so much for considering our film which was a labor of love and done on a micro budget with a skeleton crew.