Experiential cinema in its purest form, GUNDA chronicles the unfiltered lives of a mother pig, a flock of chickens, and a herd of cows with masterful intimacy. Using stark, transcendent black and white cinematography and the farm’s ambient soundtrack, director Victor Kossakovsky (AQUARELA) invites the audience to slow down and experience life as his subjects do, taking in their world with a magical patience and an other worldly perspective. GUNDA asks us to meditate on the mystery of animal consciousness, and reckon with the role humanity plays in it.
“...Sublimely beautiful and profoundly moving, it offers you the opportunity to look — at animals, yes, but also at qualities that are often subordinated in narratively driven movies, at textures, shapes and light.” —Manohla Dargis, New York Times Critic’s Pick “...Bare in its aesthetic dogma — there’s no music, no title cards, and no people in sight—and flawless with its observational truth. GUNDA dispenses with all explanations and emotional scheming tactics for a thoroughly pictorial experience. This non-fiction rarity's only soundtrack features an ambience choir of birds chirping and bugs buzzing.” —Carlos Aguilar, rogerbertvoices.com “Kossakovsky’s fascinating non-narrative experiment burrows into the center of his subject’s nervous system, meeting the creatures on their own terms in a remarkable plea for empathy that only implores carnivores to think twice by implication.” —Eric Kohn, IndieWire "GUNDA is pure cinema... It’s jaw dropping images and sound put together with the best ensemble cast and you have something more like a potion than a movie.” —Paul Thomas Anderson
