After 14 years together, editor Nella Markey and cinematographer and producer Martin Rattini pinpointed a kernel of sadness in what they described as a happy shared life: they couldn’t have children. Sadness and Love highlights the couple’s debut film – they share directorial credits – titled Why Am I So Sad?, which documents their changing relationship with childlessness.
Their documentary project was screened earlier this week at the Pitching Forum in Thessaloniki and has since won the Mediterranean Documentary Prize, which consists of free participation in the 2024 edition of the MFI Doc Lab, a script development program dedicated to documentaries. Films edited by Marche were screened at Locarno, CPH:DOX and IDFA, but “Why Am I So Sad?” It will be the first feature film for both of them as directors. Rattini, who is also a cinematographer, produces films with Italian sustainable film company Helios.
Talk to diverseMarkey says she noticed a lack of accurate depictions of childless couples in cinema, while existing images were often negatively colored, especially of women. After that, she realized the best way forward was to make a film about her and her story with Martin, and do it together. “We thought, ‘We’re filmmakers, let’s document this!'” says Rattini regarding the way the couple dealt with an ongoing cycle of IVF treatments, invasive procedures on the female body often described as “an easy fix and a quick thing.” After a decade of trying to build a nuclear family, the two embarked on a journey to make “a movie about what comes after you realize nothing works out,” says Markey, suggesting that perhaps there is something else to cherish in this situation, “living a happy life.” Without children.”
Markie has been vocal about her ambivalence on the topic of motherhood, being “extroverted” and “pressured” by societal expectations. In the titular question, they consider the stakes of identity as defined against a rigid idea of the “normal” nuclear family: “If we can’t do this ‘normal’ thing, are we part of the ‘normal’ people??,” she asks. In the process of researching childlessness, I noticed how powerful the recurring narrative is, and how one-sided it is: If you don’t have children, you lack something essential.
After the age of 40, Westerners notice that exclusion and isolation happen almost naturally when you are the only childless couple in your friend group. This aspect of social norms made them think, “Why am I so sad?” It is also a project through which they can question belonging. “Nearly a quarter of the population of Western Europe and Japan have never had children, so what about them? Nobody talks about it, at least not very positively,” says Markey.
Developing this documentary project has allowed the couple to turn the camera on themselves and each other for the first time in such an intense way. “Why the fuck am I so sad?” Mixes an archive of holiday memories, shot on Super 8 with an underwater camera, with digital, 4K or smartphone footage of their daily lives now, as they unfold. “These are what we call our ‘happy moments,’ because when you film each other on analog film for 10 years, every holiday, you end up with a representation of the perfect couple,” Ratini says, poking fun at the idea of a perfect — and fully documented — couple.
In addition, Marche and Ratini will digitize and incorporate archival materials from their families to complete the structure. An important part they also drew was the part where they think about the dreams and aspirations they had, “and also the things we can’t say to each other, like our fears,” Markey says. The two have slightly different attitudes toward childlessness depending on their individual backgrounds, so, to tell their different stories, they plan to involve therapists as facilitating figures. The contrast to the image of the “perfect couple”, she says, is complete honesty in their shared search for ways to “free yourself from social narratives and internalized stereotypes.”
Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival takes place from March 7 to 17.