This article first appeared in the August 2022 digital edition of Equestrian Life. To see what’s in the current issue, click here.
The director and star. Image: Aneta and Filip Gebscy.
The little grey donkey that could
By Suzy Jarratt
Humans have a much to learn from our equine friends, even a humble grey donkey called ‘EO’, as we discover in the hit film and Jury Prize winner of the 2022 Cannes Film festival.
This 90-minute film is about a donkey called EO, who was born in a circus. Its 84-year-old Polish director was inspired by Robert Bresson’s Balthazar, a sixties French drama following the life of a donkey at the hands of various owners.
“The world is a mysterious place when seen through the eyes of an animal,” goes the storyline for EO, the Jury Prize winner at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. “EO, a grey donkey with melancholic eyes, meets good and bad people on his life’s path, experiences joy and pain, endures the wheel of fortune which randomly turns his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But not even for a moment does he lose his innocence.”
In Jerzy Skolimowski’s version, shot in Poland and Italy, EO is first seen working in the big top alongside Kasandra, his caretaker and best friend. The two are parted when activists rescue him, although EO doesn’t want to leave. He is taken to a sanctuary where, among so many things, he misses Kasandra’s carrot muffins. Later he is captured to become the mascot of a football team, stolen by a gang trading in illicit horse meat and finally rescued by a young aristocrat…
Click here to read the full article FREE in the August 2022 issue of Equestrian Life magazine.
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