A Cow’s Life

Emmanuel Gras will join us for a virtual discussion of his film A Cow’s Life on September 14th.

Click HERE to attend the virtual discussion with director Emmanuel Gras on September 14.

Click HERE for a link to view the film online between September 11 and 18.

In the fields, we can see them, lying on the grass or grazing peacefully. Large placid animals we take for granted. Lions, gorillas, or bears capture our attention, but has anyone ever closely documented a cow’s life? Asked what they were doing with their days? What they do when a storm passes? When the sun comes back? What are they thinking about when they stand there motionless, seemingly contemplating the void? Bovines chronicles the true life of a cow: grazing, ruminating, gazing – but also feeling – mooing with grief, or just enjoying an apple…

Emmanuel Gras is a director of documentary-inspired films. His films address social topics and rely on a method of radical formalism. His works are at once experiments on what cinema can produce and how it can address a particular subject. They have been selected to be shown at numerous international festivals such as Vienna International Film Festival, BFI-London, New Directors New Film-New York, TIFF-Toronto, CPH: DOX-Copenhagen, KVIFF-Karlovy Vary, DOKer-Moscow, IDFA-Amsterdam, and have won several awards. His first feature film, Bovines, was nominated at the French Césars in 2013 for best documentary, while his more recent work, Makala, won the Critics’ Week Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. In 2019-20, he was a Fellow of the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris.

To watch the trailer please click here.

This virtual screening is co-presented with Albertine Cinématheque.

Produced and presented by Columbia Maison Française

With additional support provided by Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Columbia Climate School, Knapp Family Foundation, Paul LeClerc Centennial Fund, Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Columbia Global Centers | Paris, Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, Alliance Program, and European Institute.

Curated by Shanny Peer, Fanny Guex and Clara Wilhelm

Screenings will be introduced or followed by panel discussions with invited scholars and, in some cases, the film directors. All films are subtitled in English.