Love Birth Life
Trailer
Overview
- Running time
- 47 min
- Genre
- A love story in documentary
- Language
- English
- Director
- Mahatma Putra
- Producer
- Natasha May
- Production company
- Anatman Pictures
- Location
- Cowes, Phillip Island & rural Victoria, Australia
- Completed
- Filmed October 2020 – January 2021
- Distribution
- Festivals, private screenings and Vimeo on Demand
Synopsis
Love Birth Life is a love story. A documentary that follows Freya Light, a spiritually awakened single mum in rural Victoria who gives birth at home by herself, without a partner's support. Her sisterhood and her inner teacher are her only guides through the windy year of 2020.
Love Birth Life
Subjects
- Freya LightLead subject, a single mother giving birth at home
- Dexter & ZaneFreya's two sons, welcoming their sister
- Ayanna LightThe newborn
Love Birth Life
Stills
Mahatma Putra
Director's statement
Most people see life as a line: a moment where it appears, birth, and a moment where it stops, death. Another way to see that line is as an accumulation of dots, each an independent moment arising and passing away. There is no line, no past and no future, only dots constantly appearing and fading. That is what we call the here and now.
Love Birth Life is an honest observation of Freya Light, a single mum who learns to let go into the present moment so she can birth her baby at home. Her journey is a reminder of how sacred the bond between mother and infant is at birth: that succession of dots, that succession of love, the continuation of life.
— Mahatma Putra
Approach
Treatment & ratio
Classic observational documentary, cinéma vérité, mixed with interviews and Freya's own personal footage.
Intimate and warm: we wanted audiences to feel they were looking through a family photo album. So we set aside the cinematic widescreen and 16:9 frames for 4:3, the ratio of an ordinary photograph, which brings Freya closer. She is an everyday heroine, not a distant heroic figure.
Digital movement
Remembering Birth
To raise awareness of home birth and natural birth, Freya created her own coaching programme and podcast, Remembering Birth (@rememberingbirth on Instagram). Together, the film and Freya's work form a digital movement about the challenges faced by families who choose to give birth at home.
Love Birth Life
Behind the scenes
Filmmakers
Director & producer
Mahatma Putra
Director
Originally from Indonesia, Putra moved to Cowes, Victoria during the Covid-19 pandemic. His eastern philosophical and spiritual background, mainly Buddhism and Kejawen, shapes his work. After graduating from Universitas Indonesia in 2008 and working as a video journalist at Voice of America in Washington DC (PPIA-VOA Fellowship, 2011–2012), he became a documentary filmmaker and studied Buddhism at the Sri Lanka International Buddhist Academy. In 2013 he co-founded Anatman Pictures with Natasha May, and in 2020 they established Anatman Pictures Australia.
Natasha May
Producer
Natasha grew up in Melbourne and moved to Jakarta in 2008, where she lived with her family until April 2020. As a contributing photographer and writer for Australian publications she grew a passion for sharing stories from Indonesia. In 2012, as producer and researcher, she and Mahatma Putra won several Storyhunter of the Month awards; Anatman Pictures followed in 2013, and Anatman Pictures Australia in 2020.
Acknowledgement
Country
The producers acknowledge the Bunurong / Boonwurrung people as the traditional owners of the land on which Love Birth Life was produced.
Love Birth Life
Production team & credits
Directed by
- Mahatma Putra
Produced by
- Natasha May
Featuring
- Freya Light
- Dexter
- Zane
- Ayanna Light