EO

EO is a grey donkey with melancholy eyes. In a travelling Polish circus, he works with the performer Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), who loves him. When animal-welfare campaigners have the circus closed down, he is separated from her – and begins a journey he did not choose: into a stable, onto a farm, to a football team, into a fur farm, onto a lorry, all the way to the villa of an Italian countess (Isabelle Huppert). EO encounters cruelty and kindness without being able to tell them apart. “EO” by Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland, 2022) tells the world from the perspective of an animal that sees everything and understands nothing – or more than people suspect.

Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski wrote the film with Ewa Piaskowska and explicitly cites Robert Bresson’s 1966 “Au hasard Balthazar” as a reference. Unlike Bresson, he does not tell the story ascetically but as a road movie that tries to guess at an animal’s perception. Six donkeys shared the title role. In the Cannes 2022 competition it received the Jury Prize, shared with “Acht Berge”; Poland submitted the film for the Oscar race, where it was nominated for best international feature. “EO” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2022.

Shown at the 2022 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2022 · Film Archive