New Life
A short documentary project by Anna Martini & Bernadette Weber
2022 - ongoing
Breaking the silence
New Life tells the intimate story of a brief and painful struggle to let someone so close to oneself go before they could see the light of the world. An experience of love, hope and strength, where death and life equally become part of something bigger. An attempt to break the silence about something that is shared by so many, yet understood as a stigma, exceptional and rare.
Synopsis
Anna's pregnancy has been feeling so easy, so very right. She has been embracing it to the fullest. In her journal she writes to her "Bebè". She sings about him and to him. She shares her everyday experiences on social media: to tell her friends and family, who are spread around Europe, about the beauty of her journey.
Then on February 15th, everything changes. Her routine ultrasound alerts her OB-GYN. Two weeks of nerve wracking analyses follow: an emotional rollercoaster of fear and hope, and a painful final result. Anna learns that life for her son, on this planet, would be short and torturous. She must make a bitter decision, give birth to her motionless child and let go of his body, to let his soul be in peace.
"Life", for Anna, has been reshaped. Yet, while she struggles to cope with what she has been through, she understands that she is not alone. There are in fact countless parents out there, who share Anna's experience. However, they all privately carry their weight on their shoulders, silently, left to themselves.
My note
This film is, for me, a way to honor, heal and give a voice to all women who went through this. To help them feel less lonely and stronger, together, as it takes an enormous, beyond-human effort for one soul alone to experience death and birth at once, and be elevated by it to a whole new dimension of Life. The only way for it to happen is with the help and support of other souls, especially the ones who went through the same experience and were transformed by it, as their holding hands become a channel of healing energy and Love.
Pain and Love are two sides of the same coin. In absence of Love, there is Pain. In absence of Pain, Love unfolds. By going through pain and surrendering to it, we can free ourselves from it. We can let go of the fear of it. And from that point, once we know it profoundly, from within, with every cell of our body, we are able to transform it into Love.
And it’s not just about Pain and Love. In the same way, Life and Death can’t exist separately. It’s the awareness and the experience of death that bring meaning to Life. Life, in its highest form and meaning, is infinite. It is eternal. A cycle of never-ending transformation. So when there is Death, in that very moment, there is Birth too. The birth of a new Life, the synthesis of the opposites that blend and become one whole, holistic, unified experience of our existence as the expression of something bigger than ourselves.
“I have rarely in my life been so inspired as when I saw Anna coping with her baby's fate and with her own decision to let him go. Her exceptional spiritual faculties, her rationality and strength when she decided that she would not bring someone into a world that would mean pain and struggle, and all the love she kept developing for this "new life", which she decided to embrace and carry with her throughout all her time. Anna has been an inspiration to me, and I believe she can be it for so many more.”
Directors’ note
Would you like to know more about the project or get involved?
Contact us
hello@anna-martini.com
info@nanaweber.net