Cannes premiere lineup includes film shot from a cow’s perspective

The film has been in production for seven years

Oscar-winning English filmmaker Andrea Arnold’s film Cow is under the spotlight at the premiere line-up of the Cannes Film Festival 2021.

The 93-minute observational documentary is based on the world as seen through the eyes of a cow named Luma.

“This is the story of reality, that of a dairy cow, and a tribute to the immense service she renders us. When I look at Luma, our cow, I see the whole world through her,” said the filmmaker while addressing the press after the premiere.

“We usually see cows as a herd. I wanted to see a cow as an individual.”

The film is Arnold’s first non-fiction film and it has been in production for seven years.

According to the synopsis, the film follows a solitary cow, Luma, on a farm. Luma takes a disengaged yet compassionate view as she does its essential work of producing milk and calves when she isn’t out to pasture.

Arnold, who has previously worked on Red Road, Fish Tank, and Wuthering Heights said: “It (Cow) is a hard film to explain. [The writing of the introduction] took me back to my relationship with nature as a child.

“That is where it started. I grew up on an estate surrounded by wilderness and I used to roam around a lot.”

“I wondered what is the reality,” she added. “It is a reaction to the disconnection from reality that we are all facing now.” “We are sort of frightened of reality. I wanted to get in there and see what it is actually like.”

Arnold also said that she hopes the film will encourage people to engage with a non-human consciousness.

Cannes Film Festival kicked off on 6 July and runs through 17 July.

The festival was cancelled last year due to the pandemic, but it is back in its physical form with adequate safety measures this year.