Sita Sings the Blues is an animated re-telling of the ancient Hindu parable, The Ramayana. Rather than simply recreate the tale, Brooklyn-based cartoonist Nina Paley seeks to more deeply develop the female protagonist, Sita, who was rejected by her husband despite her complete devotion to him. Paley relates the internal battle of this age-old archetype to the hardship of her own unexpected divorce, using her go-to break-up music (the blues songs of Annette Hanshaw) as a soundtrack and sub-titling the film “The Greatest Break-Up Story of All Time.”

Over three millennia, the epic canto The Ramayana has provided an archetype for many cultures–Hindu, Thai, Lao, Malaysian–of the ideal man of virtue. In Paley’s film, the story is narrated humorously by three individuals in conversation with each other; their commentary provides different versions of the story (of which there are many), and as they debate the details the animation follows suit. What it boils down to is this:

Rama, the eldest son of an emperor (and supposed reincarnation of Vishnu), is forced to step aside and allow his younger half-brother to take the throne because of a favor the emperor owes to the younger son’s mother. Rama takes the news well and accepts his 14-year banishment to the forest, taking his young wife, Sita, along with him at her own insistence. Rama and Sita, the mythological “perfect couple,” live happily in isolation until the evil king of Sri Lanka, Ravana, stealthily captures Sita, leading to an 18-month war between the two men and their armies. Rama eventually wins Sita back, then turns her away because her living in another man’s home has made her impure. He will not allow Sita in the palace when he returns to the throne after his 14-year hiatus, and she responds by willingly moving back to the forest alone to raise Rama’s two sons-–all the while remaining devoted to Rama.

Upon first coming across the story while she was living with her then-husband in India, Paley writes on her website that she “considered the Ramayana little more than misogynist propaganda.” A few months later, while on a work trip to New York where she was dumped over email (all of which is related in the film), Paley says she saw something in the Ramayana that was universal. She developed one scene from the fable into an animated short, but the creative urge was not spent and early viewers of the piece wanted more. Sita Sings the Blues was fashioned in its full length over the next couple of years, and is currently screening in numerous North American cities.

As if that wasn’t enough, there is even more drama behind Paley’s Sita: following the first well-received screenings, the indie cartoonist happened upon another self-defining moment in her career – copyright infringement. At present, her film cannot be distributed in theaters unless Paley pays several hundred thousand dollars for the rights to use Annette Hanshaw’s music; also she may be getting sued. As a result, Paley is now championing a new cause, and she’s not being quiet about it. Read her blog or see if you can catch her at one of the film’s screenings this year. Her legal battle could be a watershed for independent filmmakers everywhere.