Title
COWS

Both ran away. To find a shelter. To find themselves.
They’ve been on the run for the last couple of weeks, for the last twelve years.
Overwhelmed by work and trapped in endless conversations with her family, a
scientist is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a cow that escaped the
slaughterhouse and unsettled an entire society. Living between countries, she keeps
secret her relationship with her partner abroad.
As she searches for the animal, she encounters the different voices that surround the
case: slaughterhouse workers struggling under exhausting conditions, young people
who turn the cow into a symbol of resistance, and a media landscape that transforms
the escape into a public spectacle. Television debates, newspaper headlines and
rumors spread across the country, exposing the fears, hopes and contradictions of a
society trying to make sense of the cow’s escape.
What begins as a search for a missing animal gradually becomes an attempt to
confront everything the scientist herself has been running away from: her family, her
relationship and the life she has built in secrecy.

Mentor - Bernhard Studlar

Biography

Mateja Kardelis, born 2001 in Novi Sad, writes and translates in German, English, and BKS. He holds a BA in theatre directing and currently studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His work moves between theatre and cinematic form, exploring memory, liminal spaces, and queer-feminist utopias.