Gunda documents scenes of mating, slaughtering, and animal personification. Giving way to poetic, natural-light cinematography, the film chronicles the daily life of a sow and her litter, two cows, and a one-legged chicken as they fight for food, play, and grow. Delicately contrastive in black and white, the ground-level shots and a soundtrack of oinking and chirping transport the audience to the animals’ realm on the farm, creating emotional resonance with the audience. Leaving out music, narration, subtitles, and human presence throughout, the film’s experimental approach echoes pure cinema in an enchanting way. Gunda overturns the anthropocentric view and inspires a profound realisation of all beings as sentient and equal.

In Untitled (Human Mask), French artist Pierre Huyghe reimagines Fukushima as a post-apocalyptic space after the devastating tsunami of 2011 and the resulting nuclear disaster. Inside an abandoned restaurant, the only survivor, a monkey, continues to do the daily work taught by its master while wearing a mask of a girl and in a waitress’s uniform. Nudging the audience towards projecting their own emotions onto the face hidden behind the mask, the short film emphasises the barrier between human and animal consciousness.

Viktor Kossakovsky (b. 1961, Russia) is a documentary film director. Educated in screenwriting and directing at Moscow HCSF, he began his film career as an assistant cameraman, assistant director, and editor at the Leningrad Studio of Documentaries. His known works include Hush! I Tishe! (2002), Russia from My Window (2003), and Aquarela (2018). He has received multiple awards while his works have been featured at several international film festivals.

Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962, France) is an artist living and working in Paris and New York. He works include a vast range of media, including film, sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, and living systems. He has held several international solo exhibitions at various venues and his works have been featured at a number of international art shows.