The world of modern Europe is seen from an unusual perspective in Director Jerzy Skolimowski’s drama from Poland, EO.

 Skolimowski’s film tells the story of EO, a gray donkey with melancholic eyes and a curious spirit who began his life as a circus performer before escaping on a trek across the Polish and Italian countryside. Along the way he meets good and bad people, experiences joy and pain, and endures the wheel of fortune that randomly turns his luck into disaster and his despair into unexpected bliss. But throughout it all he never loses his innocence.

The film earned Skolimowski a nomination for the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival where it also took home the Jury Prize (in a tie with Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains).

On November 16, the Eastern Region Special Projects Committee’s Global Series screened EO at the Guild’s New York Theater. Following the screening, Skolimowski engaged in a conversation about the making of EO moderated by Director Michael Almereyda (Tesla). They were joined by translator Ewa Piakowska, who was also the co-writer and co-producer of the film.

During the conversation, Skolimowski spoke about how the idea of an animal as the main character derived from his desire to deconstruct the idea of linear narration and open the film to new avenues.

“We thought if we see everything through the animal’s eyes it would open some new chances and at least a good chunk of a dialogue will be cut. I was counting on the fact that not having the dialogue, I would have the music illustrate the inner monologue of the of the animal, no traditional narration. We can jump here and there, back and forth because animals don't look in the index human of logic where A has to lead to B, B has to lead to C et cetera. We would be much freer into using our ideas.”

Skolimowski’s other directorial credits include the Cannes Film Festival C.I.C.A.E. Award-nominated feature Cztery noce z Anna; the Palme d’Or-nominated features Torrents of Spring, Success Is the Best Revenge, The Shout and King, Queen, Knave; and the Palme d’Or-winning feature Moonlighting.