Film Forum

ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE!
Best International Feature Film
2023

An immersive drama by 84-year-old Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski (FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA, THE SHOUT, DEEP END) – a visually spectacular, often surreal odyssey of the eponymous winsome gray donkey (played by six different Polish and Sardinian donkeys). This long, strange trip begins in a Polish circus where he is adored (and liberated by animal rights activists), moves on to a horse farm (from which he escapes), after which he briefly becomes the mascot of a soccer team. The world experienced through the animal’s eyes is at times cruel, loving, random, dreamy, chaotic, or idyllic. Surprisingly, Isabelle Huppert makes an appearance as The Countess in a palatial Italian villa where the donkey briefly sojourns.

2022     88 MIN.     POLAND / ITALY     SIDESHOW / JANUS FILMS
IN POLISH, FRENCH, ENGLISH & ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES        

Reviews

#1 Film of the Year – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“…Now 84, Skolimowski has made one of the rare movies that speak to life’s most essential questions, and he’s done so with the ecstatic vision and fearlessness of a cinematic genius who seems as if he’s just getting started.”

WINNER
Best Foreign Language Film
New York Film Critics Circle

Jury Prize
2022 Cannes Film Festival

“The best film of the year”
– Amy Taubin, ARTFORUM

“…a shocking and tender tour de force…wild, boldly expressionistic… no movie that I’ve seen this year has moved me as deeply, made me feel as optimistic about cinema or engaged me with such intellectual vigor as EO, whose octogenarian genius auteur and all the donkeys who play EO — Hola, Tako, Marietta, Ettore, Rocco and Mela — deserve all the love and the carrots, too.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
Read the full Critic's Pick review.

"EO’s personality shines thanks to Skolimowski’s daringly imaginative depictions, both visual and emotional, of the donkey’s point of view."
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“HYPNOTIC. Bold in a way few contemporary films truly are.”
– Christina Newland, Sight and Sound

“A FLAMBOYANT, VISIONARY WORK. The wildest, youngest film in the Cannes lineup was made by an 84-year-old director up for anything.”
– Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

“AN ENGROSSING EXPERIENCE… If there are some movies that play better on a big screen in a dark theatre with the sound turned up, this is one of them. Skolimowski’s extremely visceral direction, makes even the smallest of events seem epic… Does the cinema have room for two art house donkey movies in its repertoire? Robert Bresson’s 1966 AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is the other great donkey film, but it’s a different, ahem, beast. Whereas Bresson used his animal as means to observe shades of human frailty and cruelty in provincial France, Skolimowski… fill(s) his movie with breathtaking imagery atop a minimalist narrative.”
– Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“AN EXEMPLARY, FRESH AND RADIANT PIECE OF WORK… The whole world looks more scintillating, inviting and exciting when experienced through the
filmmakers’ heightened visual awareness.”
– Todd McCarthy, Deadline

“EO is an animal film that stands defiantly on its own hooves, marked out by a potent emotional charge, very contemporary eco-consciousness, and filmmaking that at its best
fairly sizzles in its strangeness.”
– Jonathan Romney, Screen International