A video series project by Jessica Fertonani Cooke & Guta Galli
2023 - Ongoing


May the Cows Forgive Us attempts to conjure states of waking life, in between-states of consciousness, and dreams by the directresses, the crew members, and the actors. Like Calvino, the premise of the film is that “The unconscious is the ocean of the unspeakable”, and that's where it dives into. It contains no dialogue, it is surrealist, discontinuous. What drives and connects the scenes are the emotional landscapes that overflow between the interactions of characters, music, scenery, and symbolism, building upon information received through the senses.

The film explores the idea of milk in the literal and metaphorical sense of life force and nurturance, and it goes on to explore where has this ‘milk’ , or life force, been abused, excessively used, or taken away in contemporary capitalism. It draws parallels between land extractivsm and that of the extractivsm of women’s nurturance roles, additionally it speaks of the abuse of cows as a mirror to our own self-abuse, and the lived and/or inherited experiences of violence, power, transformation, healing, birth, and political and existential insurgence. The film poses the impossible question ‘Why does the abuse of life force, and the same cycles of violence repeat itself over again, from ancient times until this day?’