Cow

Cow

From acclaimed filmmaker Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) comes COW, a raw, immersive, and profoundly empathetic documentary that challenges how we see the animals that sustain us.

Filmed over four years on a large-scale English dairy farm, the film quietly follows the life of Luma, a veteran dairy cow. Without narration or commentary, Arnold’s camera observes the rhythms of calving, milking, feeding, hoof-trimming, and the wrenching separations that define Luma’s world. Through this unflinching intimacy, Cow transforms the ordinary into the deeply emotional, revealing the quiet dignity and exhaustion of a life lived entirely in service to human consumption.

By stripping away the usual filters of documentary storytelling, Arnold forces us to confront what we rarely choose to see—the transactional nature of our relationship with animals and the cost of our comfort. What begins as a study in routine becomes a meditation on dependency, sacrifice, and resilience.

Both heartbreaking and humane, Cow stands as one of the most affecting works of observational cinema in recent years—a film that looks directly, and without apology, at the lives intertwined with our own.

Screening With:

Omukama

Student Short Showcase

Milkman Daryl Ismet navigates loneliness on a surreal stage.

10 mins 24s
Canada, 2022
Dir. Zane Klassen
Language: English

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