An imaginative and playful collage of images from the life of cows. A mosaic of small stories from all over the world, in which cows experience positive and negative moments, depicts the life of an animal in a global world and its relationship with humans.
The technique of painting, drawing and paper collage, enhanced by 2D computer animation, works withdepth of field to create space. The visual style creates a semi-abstract environment through its stylization, playing freely with scale and perspective. Using of metamorphosis creates artistically playful transitions between the different stories. Inspiration comes from artists such as Henry Moore, Paul Klee, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso who balance the edge of reality and abstraction in their work. The artwork illustrates its looseness with a non-dramatic and mosaic narrative that supports the intention that the film does not aspire to be overly moralising and primarily educational, but rather inspirational in the sense of seeking harmony between man and nature. The cow itself is such a distinctive and globally known animal that it allows for the creation of a distinctive visual shorthand.
Director says:
With my film I want to make a positive contributi on to the current climate situation. I would like the film to be an impulse to reflect on the life of an animal - in this case a cow - to draw attention to the need to see each creature as a complex, living being, not just as part of our human eco-nomic industry. However, I don't want the film to come across as radically engaged orpurely documentary and critical, although I work freely with facts. I collected these for about a year and a half from the media, books and narratives, gathering a lot of bizarre, common or biological facts about cows. This information has helped me put together a mosaic of specific cow stories from around the world. I express my feelings indirectly, through animated collage, telling them in a playful and distanced way, so that I look at the "cow's life" from a broad perspective - the story of a cow can actually be a simplified story of the world.
Director, Art Design – Pavla Baštanová
Story – Pavla Baštanová
Script – Eva Prchalová
Editor – Jan Daňhel
Script – Eva Prchalová, Pavla Baštanová
Animation – Bára Halířová, Jénay Vogel
Sound, Music – Peter Bräker
Producer – Mária Môťovská (MAUR film, CZ)
Co-producer – Sereina Gabathuler (Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion, CH)
Technique – 2D animation, collage
Length – 12:52 min.
Release – 2023
Financially supported by — Czech Film Fund, Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft Confederation Suisse Bundesamt für Kultur, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, SRG SSR, Zürcher Filmstiftung, Endowment Fund Film Talent Zlin
