Animals are practical extras. They don’t demand their own fees, have few airs and graces, and fit into any era. As supporting actors, they easily reflect the motives and feelings of human protagonists without needing to translate them into words. Moreover, whether in animated or well-trained live-action form, they serve as protagonists of entire franchises. Both arthouse and mainstream films are made from the subjective, shining eyes of cows, pigs (like Babe), or donkeys. Cinematic animals have come a long way.
Animal companions also abound in the works in this year’s competition at the goEast Film Festival. In many of the 14 films, they demonstrate their versatility and symbolic power.
Bosnian filmmaker Maja Novaković’s nearly speechless opening film At the Door of the House Who Will Come Knocking (Ko će pokucati na vrata mog doma) is a semi-fictional portrait of a hermit. For decades, Emin, whose bearded face is never fully seen, has lived on the outskirts of a Bosnian village. There’s no electricity, neighbors order wood from him but decline Emin’s invitation for a drink. The faded black-and-white photo of a young couple gently speaks of bygone times. What’s left of Emin’s relationships, of any emotional connection, is taken by a horse – a patient animal that, in a long, impressive scene, tries to pull a tree through the snow with Emin. It takes forever for the horse and trunk to finally make it across the windblown, uneven ground.
The four-legged friend is a real, and incidentally, Emin’s only friend. The protagonist in this quiet, at times overly reduced film seems deeply disappointed by people, and the director leaves him with his secret, his past. While the animal isn’t anthropomorphized in this close relationship, a sinking feeling remains: Who actually needs whom here? In any case, the horse never lets him down.
The protagonist of Everything Needs to Live (Wszystko ma żyć) by Ukrainian directors Tetiana Dorodnitsyna and Andrii Lytvynenko lives in far more numerous animal company. Their documentary follows the Ukrainian strength athlete and trainer Anna Kurkurina, who runs a shelter for stray dogs and cats alongside her career. She lovingly trains Dima, a young man with physical disabilities who ultimately makes it into weightlifting competitions. Her care seems immeasurable. Time and again, the images feast on the apparent contrasts between the angular, highly muscular woman and cute, small furry creatures.
The directing duo narrates the current events of the war with impressive casualness. After all, those fleeing Russian bombing had to leave their pets behind – one of the many gruesome “collateral damages.” Anna drives into destroyed buildings, encounters severely traumatized animals, and leaves them food. Just like Emin, she is also free of human relationships in her private life. At home, dogs and cats scurry around her in droves. Whether the tomboyish woman prefers to surround herself with animals rather than humans, whether personal disappointments lie behind this, or simply an incredibly strong love of animals, the film does not speculate.
Radu Jude’s commercials from post-socialist Romania, which he edited into a radically hilarious collage entitled Eight Postcards from Utopia (Opt ilustrate din lumea ideală), display quite a bit of fur due to the format. Cute animal eyes can’t lie – and riding horses are a good way to illustrate the proud Romanian heritage.
The fantasy comedy The Black Hole (Must auk) by Estonian filmmaker Moonika Siimets offers several types of non-human sociability. Friends Maret and Sirje, who eke out an unpleasantly work-intensive life in Estonia, accidentally meet a friendly, albeit literally slimy alien who offers to lend them their bodies for experiments in exchange for money. The women enthusiastically agree – because the experiments taking place aboard the spaceship cause them no pain, despite the martial techniques (amputations, organ removal), and the guinea pigs (another animal!) always feel reborn afterwards. “If you had to choose one, who would it be?” they ask each other, giggling – love seems possible across species boundaries.
In another episode, a woman befriends a female fitness trainer, and they even move in together. At night, the women are awakened by noises and discover a giant spider crawling around the apartment. But many shiny eyes can look even cuter than two – and spiders also want affection.
Stuffed teddies of all shapes, colors, and sizes, bobblehead dogs and live animals (dogs, fish) are part of the impressive backdrop in Tato Kotetishvili’s Georgian contribution Holy Electricity (Tsminda Elektroenergia). The film tells of friendship and first love, of business ideas, and the junkyard as a parallel universe. The animals here only watch the protagonists, the young Gonga and his cousin, the trans man Bart, but their button eyes seem to symbolize seeing itself. Besides, the baby schema, especially common with stuffed animals, simply always works – on and off screen.
The remaining films in the competition are also hardly animal-free. Dogs and cats, as pets, repeatedly stroll across the screens in town and country, barking and meowing in the background and enhancing atmospheres, or emphasizing human emotions simply through their presence. Perhaps these four-legged extras could also be seen as a symbol of permanence, at least in documentary formats.
While the style and technique, content and narrative form of documentaries have changed just as dramatically over the decades as the people portrayed themselves, the animals remain the same. Their function in the film is not subject to political or technical upheaval. For the horse, it makes no difference what camera it is filmed with, who is in power at the time, or whether its owner has received funding. The main thing is that a healthy portion of hay awaits at the end of the day.
Jenni Zylka
©FIPRESCI 2025
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in 25th goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film