Best of 2021: Gunda

From buzzy award contenders to hidden gems you might have missed during lockdown, catch up on this year’s best and brightest docs on our big screen. Members get $5 tickets!

“A work of genius…this is a film that finds beauty everywhere” (The Guardian). Shortlisted for a 2020 Academy Award and executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix, this experiential masterpiece offers an intimate look at the daily lives of a sow and her rambuctious piglets, a one-legged chicken and a herd of cows on a farm in Norway. Using transcendent black and white cinematography, and an entirely wordless soundtrack, acclaimed director Viktor Kossakovsky (Aquarela) invites you to slow down and view the world as these wondrous creatures do: with a magical patience and an other-worldly perspective. Along the way, Gunda also asks us to meditate on the mystery of animal consciousness—and reckon with the role humanity plays in it.