{"id":37307,"date":"2021-08-27T01:58:52","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T08:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37307"},"modified":"2021-08-25T11:14:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T18:14:07","slug":"animatedly-tackling-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/08\/27\/animatedly-tackling-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Animatedly tackling issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bayla\u2019s Issues<\/em>, the title character is plagued by the travails of aging and anxiety, and a desire for acknowledgement in the art world.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Bayla\u2019s Issues<\/em>, a 2020 animated short based on the comic strip Bayla\u2019s Comics<\/em> by Vancouver artist Hinda Avery, has been making the Jewish film festival circuit, with a recent stop in Washington, D.C. The 15-minute film, which follows the story of its title character and her quest to be recognized as an artist, was directed and edited by Victoria\u2019s Michael Kissinger, and is voiced by Ellen Kennedy and animated by Marty Emanuel.<\/p>\n

Divided into eight chapters, Bayla\u2019s Issues<\/em> delves into the inner thoughts \u2013 a turbulent sea of doubts, fears and anxieties \u2013 of its heroine and her conversations with an expensive and expletive-laden therapist, who is neither encouraging nor helpful.<\/p>\n

The character of Bayla came into being after Avery retired from her career in academia. At the time, she wanted to do two things: return to painting after a long break and establish a means of connecting with family who died in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, the only way for me to make this connection would be through an imaginary process, and painting seemed a tangible tool,\u201d Avery told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI decided to paint myself with my late mother and, with the help of only two motley photographs, my murdered aunt and grandmother. This would suffice as a way of spending time with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avery\u2019s mother had left Poland before the start of the Second World War, but was severely traumatized by the murder of her family by the Nazis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe atrocity affected both her mental and physical health; her trauma was passed down to me, hence my close connection to the Holocaust,\u201d Avery said.<\/p>\n

Over time, in a process that began in 2005 and lasted 13 years, Avery was able to separate herself from, as she puts it, \u201can overt depiction of the Holocaust experience \u2013 an event too catastrophic for me to depict using conventional representation \u2013 and instead depicted it as a phantasmagoric event. I added more women and called us all \u2018The Rosen Sisters.\u2019\u201d Rosen was her mother\u2019s family name.<\/p>\n

The paintings feature strong, confident women resisters in situations that are both humorous and dark. Avery found it therapeutic and liberating \u201cto fight the Nazis in this vicarious method.\u201d Still, she said, \u201cbeneath the surface of all the paintings, the calamity and horror of the Holocaust is ever present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>
In Bayla\u2019s Issues<\/em>, Bayla must deal with her past.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the paintings, in her view, had run their course, she was \u201cdesolate\u201d and expressed this by drawing a comic about a befuddled, unfulfilled older Jewish woman who is plagued by the travails of aging and anxiety, and a desire for acknowledgement in the art world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many of the comics, Bayla expresses her angst about being Jewish. Her Jewishness has never been a joy for her. In one of the comics, she says it feels like a huge lead-heavy Star of David, attached to a thick chain-link, hanging from her neck \u2013 it weighs her down, she can\u2019t pull it off,\u201d said Avery.<\/p>\n

Kissinger\u2019s collaboration with Avery can be traced to 2015, when he served as the editor of the now-defunct Vancouver Courier<\/em>. \u201cShe left a message on my work phone about an upcoming art exhibit of her paintings and I, of course, never returned her call…. But she left another message, and another message,\u201d Kissinger recounted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t do a lot of art exhibit coverage,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut, for some reason, I decided to Google her name and up came these paintings of elderly women in bikinis holding automatic weapons and swearing and taking down Hitler and having a great time while they were at it. From that point on, I was in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kissinger went on to write a story and created a five-minute video to accompany it on the newspaper\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>
Hinda Avery\u2019s cartoon strip has been transformed into film\u00a0about an \u201c\u2018old, neurotic Jewish woman\u2019 who wants to be an old,\u00a0famous painter, but is hampered by her own demons.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A year later, Avery reached out again \u2013 this time to share that she had obtained a Canada Council grant and to ask Kissinger if he would be interested in making a documentary about her, her paintings, and her journey in dealing with the Holocaust and depression.<\/p>\n

A 27-minute documentary, Hinda and Her Sisterrrz<\/em>, ensued. That 2018 film screened at a number of Jewish film festivals, including those of San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Vancouver and Victoria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documentary ends with Hinda talking about retiring the characters in her paintings and moving on to working on a comic strip about an \u2018old, neurotic Jewish woman\u2019 who wants to be an old,\u00a0famous painter, but is hampered by her own demons,\u201d said Kissinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I know Hinda\u2019s work and backstory and she trusts me with it and was happy with the documentary, she asked me if I could help her animate her comic strip,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBayla lends herself to being animated. I love seeing her come alive!\u201d Avery said.<\/p>\n

The original strip, Bayla\u2019s Comics<\/em>, appeared in Jewish Currents<\/em>. More episodes about Bayla\u2019s tribulations \u2013 under the title Bayla\u2019s Got Problems<\/em> \u2013 are currently underway.<\/p>\n

To watch the trailer for Bayla\u2019s Issues<\/em>, visit vimeo.com\/439541618<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sam Margolis<\/strong> has written for the <\/em>Globe and Mail, the <\/em>National Post, UPI and MSNBC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bayla\u2019s Issues, the title character is plagued by the travails of aging and anxiety, and a desire for acknowledgement in the art world. Bayla\u2019s Issues, a 2020 animated short based on the comic strip Bayla\u2019s Comics by Vancouver artist Hinda Avery, has been making the Jewish film festival circuit, with a recent stop in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[8295,20781,4492,6873,1707,53,20782,6691],"class_list":["post-37307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-animation","tag-baylas-issues","tag-cartoon","tag-film","tag-hinda-avery","tag-holocaust","tag-michael-kissinger","tag-painting"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}