Signe Baumane’s ‘Karmic Knot’ Announces Voice Cast

The Marriage Project, the production company behind the director Signe Baumane‘s new animated feature Karmic Knot, has announced the voice cast featuring celebrated talents from Hollywood and Broadway.

Leading the ensemble is Tony Award-nominated Broadway and film star Patrick Wilson, known for his roles in The Conjuring series and Insidious, joined by Dagmara Dominczyk (Succession, The Lost Daughter), Gracie Lawrence (lead singer of the band Lawrence), Emma Kenney (The Connors, Shameless), Stephen Lang (Avatar, Don’t Breathe) and Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things).

Written and directed by Baumane (Rocks in My Pockets, My Love Affair with Marriage), Karmic Knot tells the epic tale of a tight-knit family trying to survive in the Soviet-occupied Latvia from the 1970s to early 1990s. The family bargains, compromises, and ingeniously builds their own world, insular from the political reality. When the Soviet Union starts to collapse and shatters their world, the family aspires to rebuild it even more insular than before. One family member, however, has other ambitions.

Karmic Knot is a mixture of drama, comedy and horror (a first foray into the latter genre for Baumane). The film will employ a variety of animation techniques including stop motion, traditional animation and CGI 3D. The projected released date for the movie is 2028.

About the cast and characters:

• Patrick Wilson stars as Ansis, the husband and father who uses his civil engineer’s mind to keep Chaos out of his family’s house. Wilson’s versatility as an actor, from his stage performances in The Phantom of the Opera and The Full Monty (Tony Nomination) to his acclaimed film work, makes him the perfect fit for this pivotal role.
• Dagmara Dominczyk, who voiced the lead role of Zelma in Baumane’s My Love Affair with Marriage, plays Vizma, the wife and mother of the family, who has strength to hold it together even as her closest ally betrays her.
• In addition to upcoming tours of Europe and Australia with Lawrence, her band, Gracie Lawrence will be making her Broadway debut this spring as Connie Francis in the Bobby Darin musical Just In Time. In Karmic Knot she is the voice of Ragne, the youngest daughter of the family, who harbors a most unprofitable dream.
• Emma Kenney has the vast experience of navigating complex family dynamics in 240 collective episodes of The Conners and Shameless. In Karmic Knot, she plays Zinta, the bossy older daughter, whose smart mind and ambitions are confronted by an oppressive government and sorcery.
• Stephen Lang earned worldwide recognition with his intense performances in Avatar and Don’t Breathe. Lang brings his formidable experience to the role of Victors, Vizma’s father, whose patriarchal views inflict deep wounds.
• Matthew Modine, who played Bo in Baumane’s My Love Affair with Marriage, is known for his commanding presence on film, TV and the stage. He voices Imants, Ansis’ older brother, who sets the story off by lending Ansis 10,000 rubles under one condition.

Plus, 38 New York and Latvian theater actors voice the supporting characters.

“I’m incredibly excited to work with such a talented cast on Karmic Knot,” said Baumane. “Each actor brought depth and authenticity to their character, and the animation will elevate their performances in ways that traditional live action simply can’t capture. This is a deeply emotional story about the complexities of family, and I can’t wait for audiences to experience it.”

Baumane is a Latvian born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts. Her first animated feature Rocks in My Pockets (2014) screened at over 130 international festivals and opened theatrically in the U.S. through Zeitgeist Films. Her second animated feature, My Love Affair with Marriage (2022), premiered at Tribeca Festival, screened at 110 festivals, winning 25 awards, and was released theatrically in North America through 8Above. Baumane is a Guggenheim Fellow and has a degree in Philosophy from Moscow State University.

The animation for Karmic Knot is being created by the Latvian film production company Studio Locomotive (producer Dominks Jarmakovis) and Brooklyn-based The Marriage Project (Sturgis Warner) both known for producing Baumane’s previous award-winning animated feature, My Love Affair with Marriage. The movie is one of 55 features presented at the Cartoon Movie event in Bordeaux in early March.