Seder-Masochism

Seder-Masochism (2018)

Loosely following a traditional Passover Seder, events from the Book of Exodus are retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the director's own father. But there's another side to this story: that of the Goddess, humankind's original deity. Seder-Masochism resurrects the Great Mother in a tragic struggle against the forces of Patriarchy.

Date of release
2018-06-11
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 18m
Genres
Animation, Music, Fantasy
Director
Nina Paley

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $20K
  • Based on: Exodus
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Seder-Masochism is a 2018 American animated musical biblical comedy-drama film written, directed, produced and animated by American artist Nina Paley. The film reinterprets the Book of Exodus, especially stories associated with the Passover Seder, such as the death of the Egyptian first-born, and Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. The film depicts these events against a backdrop of widespread worship of the Great Mother Goddess, showing the rise of patriarchy.

Production

After Sita Sings the Blues, Paley was criticized by some observers for co-opting the culture of India as an outsider, an assertion with which she strongly disagreed. A recurring theme among the negative comments was "how would you like it if people made a film about your religion?" Paley thought that she would enjoy watching any such film.

In 2011, Paley interviewed her terminally ill father, Hiram, intending that his voice would serve as the old bearded god figure of the Israelites. For herself, she chose to play the part of a sacrificial goat, because animal sacrifice was essential to many early religions, and because she has been seen as the black sheep of her family. Hiram Paley died in 2012 at the age of 78.

In September 2011, Paley initiated a Kickstarter crowd-funding effort to raise money for "Phase I" of the film, with a goal of $3,600. The campaign brought in $4,146. The intent of Phase I was to make recordings of various family Passover Seder discussions. Ultimately, the project took another direction, and the recordings were not used in the film.

Paley worked on the project over the course of six years, spending about three-and-a-half years animating and producing it. First, she animated some musical numbers – "This Land Is Mine" and "Moses-Exodus" – using Macromedia Flash 8 running on a first-generation Mac Pro tower, but this was not powerful enough to edit 4K resolution video in a practical manner.

In November 2017, Paley wrote that much of the project had been completed without a "coherent story", despite the attempt to tie it together in the loose form of a Passover Seder. She decided instead "to articulate the Exodus from the Goddesses' point of view", the goddesses who were at that time worshiped in Egypt as Hathor, Isis, Nut, Sekhmet, and others.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended