I watched “Generational Transmission” last night, and I’m still thinking about it today. There’s something about seeing clay figures move through these emotional landscapes that hits differently than live action ever could.
Marsha Swanson’s song is raw in a way that feels earned, not performed. You can tell she’s written from a place of actual reckoning with her own family history. The lyrics don’t try to wrap everything up neatly, which I appreciate. She talks about being descended from people who carried real trauma, persecution, forced separations, and instead of making it precious, she just presents it as fact. This is what I got. Now what do I do with it?
Sam Chegini’s claymation work here is remarkable. The guy started making films at 14, which explains why his technical command feels so assured. But what really got me was how he uses the medium to show things that would be too on the nose in regular footage. Clay can transform in ways that mirror how we carry invisible wounds. The figures shift and reshape, and somehow that captures the idea of inherited pain better than any talking head documentary could.
The video doesn’t waste time. It moves through these themes of what we get from our parents and grandparents, the good mixed with the damage, without getting preachy. Swanson’s background in psychology clearly informs how she thinks about this stuff, but she’s smart enough to let the song do the work rather than explaining everything.
I’m not surprised this is getting festival attention. It’s the kind of work that respects its audience enough to trust them with complexity. Not everything needs to be resolved. Some things we just carry forward and try to do better with.
Marsha Swanson – Generational Transmission Video
