More than a film, My Mother is a Cow emerges as an aesthetic act. In the span of just 15 minutes, Moara Passoni conjures a sensorial and symbolic universe that unravels normative constructions of motherhood, identity, and ancestry — forging instead a cinematic poetics grounded in embodied memory, transgression, and mythic resonance.

I first interviewed Moara in 2020, as she was releasing her feature film Ecstasy during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. To be a filmmaker in Brazil requires courage and boldness — and Ecstasy proved just that, earning accolades and selections at several international festivals.

Now, five years later, I interview Moara Passoni once again. This time, to talk about a short film that entered the world with a provocative title and was selected to compete in the Orizzonti section of the oldest film festival in the world — the Venice Biennale.

Set against the raw, burning landscape of the Pantanal — one of the planet’s most ecologically rich yet imperilled biomes — the film becomes a requiem and a call to consciousness. In recent years, the region has suffered devastating wildfires, many ignited by the unchecked expansion of cattle ranching. This ecological violence is not merely a backdrop, but integral to the film’s symbolic architecture: the mother as cow, the land as scorched body, the legacy of colonial extraction etched into nature and flesh alike.

Passoni’s protagonist — a daughter in search of an origin myth — moves through this charred landscape as if navigating an ancestral dream. Her memories, fragmented and fervent, resist linear storytelling. Instead, the film breathes through silence, rhythm, and image — a form closer to ritual than to narrative, closer to trance than to testimony.

A female gaze climate manifesto, My Mother is a Cow is also a meta-political gesture: a reclaiming of gaze, authorship, and affect. The presence of women behind the camera is not incidental; it is woven into the very ethics of the film. Care, risk, and complicity pulse through every frame. The collaborative process becomes, in itself, a feminist act of creation — attentive to vulnerability, listening, and embodied knowledge.

Following its premiere at the Venice Biennale, where it was nominated for the Orizzonti competition, the short has traveled to major festivals across five continents. Each screening has become an alchemical encounter, bridging cultures, silences, and urgencies. Audiences from Italy to Egypt, Sweden to Australia have engaged not with passive admiration, but with a profound, visceral recognition — as if the film had stirred something long buried beneath the skin.

With My Mother is a Cow, Moara Passoni continues to shape a cinema that defies genre and resists ease. She crafts images that linger — like embers beneath the skin — and stories that echo beyond the screen. In doing so, she affirms her place as one of the most vital cinematic voices of her generation: a filmmaker of embodied intelligence, poetic daring, and tenderness.

In My Mother is a Cow, Moara Passoni has created something that goes beyond film for me — it’s an experience, a confrontation with my own ideas about land, identity, and legacy. Watching it, I felt the weight of the themes — the scorched earth, the search for origin, the memory that lingers beneath the surface. It’s a film that doesn’t let you sit back and admire from a distance. It pulls you in, challenges you, and makes you feel. It’s impossible to be the same after watching it.

Having followed Moara’s journey since I first interviewed her in 2020, it’s incredible to see how far she has come. Her work has always carried a sense of courage and daring, but My Mother is a Cow takes it to another level — it’s deeply personal, unapologetically political, and yet, somehow, it feels universal.

In this interview with Meer, I had the privilege of sitting down with Moara Passoni to explore the mind behind her groundbreaking short film My Mother is a Cow.

In our conversation, Moara opens a window into a creative process that is as intuitive as it is intentional — a form of storytelling that begins not with words, but with sensation.

In My Mother is a Cow, the film’s title alone suggests a deep connection between motherhood, the land, and animals. What inspired this title, and how does it reflect the themes of the film?

In many cultures, the Cow is the great mother. Whether it’s in modern-day Hinduism or Hathor/Hesat in Ancient Egypt. I’ve always been fascinated with cows. This being that provides life—calves, milk. And there’s something impressive about how cows, at least the ones I’ve seen in Brazil, look at us as if they know that they’re there to serve a cycle that is not that of their own natural lives. At the same time, the warmth in their eyes is striking. In my film, both Mia’s mother and the cow are “ripe for the slaughter”. Mia projects her mother onto the cow, and succeeds in doing something for the animal that she’s been unable to do for her mother, whose life is also in danger. And, of course, Mia is feeling hurt by her mother. All she wants to do is protect her mom, but she packs her off to this paradisiacal place for her own protection, because she knows she’s got a target on her back and keeping Mia in the city would only endanger her too.

There, far away, Mia forms an unusual connection with a cow that’s just lost her calf and has stopped producing milk, which means she can now be slaughtered. A "spent" mother that has no more milk to give, and of course, there’s a feminine/feminist optic in the title too.

And the insult, calling someone a cow, which is as chauvinistic as it gets, is here deeply transformed in its meaning. In short, the title opens up multiple meanings. And I hope it makes people who come to see the film think.

That said, for me, this is a film about the greatest love there is: motherly love. Yes, my mother is the most important person in my life.

The Pantanal, with its raw beauty and environmental fragility, plays a central role in the film. Can you share more about the significance of this particular landscape and its connection to the narrative?

The film is based on a childhood memory of mine. However, the Pantanal I knew no longer exists. First of all, that magical place I used to go to when I was a kid has turned into a soy plantation. Second, because the Brazilian Pantanal—one of the world’s largest wetland plains—is now severely threatened by low-productivity monoculture, livestock farming, and, of course, the wildfires that reign there annually, transforming the landscape. Caiman, the reserve we shot the film on, caught fire two years ago. The people there are fantastic, and they’ve already managed to restore much of the lost flora and fauna. But the film reflects something of the reality of climate change and how we experience it, as something right on the horizon, bearing down on us. We can feel the imbalance it causes, yet we don’t do anything about it until it swallows us whole. But this is an optimistic film.

And the way out Mia finds is something she learned from the local wetlanders. Mia stops looking at the jaguar as a predator and starts seeing it as a spirit animal. She incorporates its strength so that she can save the cow. Mia matures and discovers her own power and capacity for action in a world where life itself is under threat. And that's something she learns from the people and wildlife of the Pantanal.

She pushes back against the extractive and colonialist logic that has held in Brazil ever since this vast territory was colonized by Portugal. But, at the end of the day, for me, the most important takeaway here is that people end up knowing that the Pantanal exists; that it’s a paradisiacal biome; and that we stand to profit a lot more from keeping it intact than by seeing it turn to smoke, pasture, and soy plantations.

The wildfires in the Pantanal, caused in part by unchecked cattle ranching, form a stark backdrop to the story. How does this environmental crisis shape the film’s narrative and its message?

I think I answered that above, but it is important to note that fire has always been a management tool the locals have used to clear land for traditional forms of farming and husbandry. The problem is that it’s now being used in a deregulated and often totally criminal way. Not to mention the fact that climate change is making Brazil as a whole drier and more fire-prone. Wildfires spread far more easily, “licking" everything in their path, to use the term I learned from Guaraná, the wetlander who plays Mia’s uncle, and who co-created the final script with us.

In fact, I’d like to mention one of the characters, Wendell. He’s a fascinating guy. A former jaguar hunter who used to charge 250 bucks to kill jaguars that strayed onto properties and took calves. One day, Wendell said, he killed a jaguar and realized for the first time just how beautiful she was. He held her paw in his hand, and he fell in love with the animal. Today, he’s a jaguar protector and works for Onçafari, looking after the Pantanal’s jaguar population. He’s a fascinating man, and there just aren’t words to describe everything I learned from him. I can only express my thanks for the learning, for the film, and for his contribution to protecting the environment and the jaguars, these magical animals.

Your protagonist is a “spectral daughter,” moving through a charred landscape in search of origin. How does her journey embody themes of identity and belonging?

In many ways, for me, Mia is a girl in search of herself, in search of her own values and way of growing up. And she finds all of that.

The film is deeply symbolic and metaphorical. How did you approach the blending of abstraction with the raw emotional intensity of the subject matter?

I make films based on the strong feelings I have for them. It's as if there were an iron core in there producing meaning. A backbone that is non-negotiable, and that I won't stop working toward until I've found it. And the film just won’t be finished until I'm satisfied I’ve reached that core. For me, from the very beginning, the fundamentals were to: 1. Tell the story (which is a fairly simple story to understand); 2. Realize the visceral meanings that are present for Mia in that experience. And these meanings are multiple. Since the film premiered at Venice last year, we've shown it at more than 60 festivals and in over 30 different countries.

People write to me from many different parts of the world, telling me how they understood the film, how it touched them. And I find that fascinating. I want to be able to make films that are experiences for the people who watch them—unique experiences, which add something, whether it's an emotion, a thought, an insight. And, in a world where there is less and less listening and connection, I want my films to be acts of listening and small works about the profound importance of connection—between people, between human beings and animals, and human beings and nature.

The film was made with an all-women crew. How did the presence of women behind the camera shape the production process and influence the final result?

I really enjoy collaborating creatively. I know I'm at my best when I'm creating with others. And I particularly love collaborating with women. I feel like there's a lot of listening among women. And a lot of mutual support. So, it's like I have more freedom to realize my vision. And yes, for me, this film is all from the female gaze. In a way, it could only have been made by someone “on the margins”. Marguerite Duras wrote about witches, who were women abandoned to utter solitude, hidden from the eyes of patriarchal power, yet who found in that solitude, unimaginable to us today, a voice of their own; a voice which they invented. And because it was an invented voice, it provoked fear in others, enough fear to see them burned at the stake. This film, without a doubt, has a voice that eschews the dominant grammar of cinema today.

Some women were central to bringing this film to the world, especially our lead producer, Sofia Geld, from Uvaia Filmes, who is also producing my first fiction feature film, Cost of Living, and who has always given me total support to arrive at the film I envisioned. Katya Skakun was also very important during pre- and post-production. I’m very aware that this is Columbia University and Katya’s film. In addition to leading the shoot and bringing Carol Costa on board as photographer, she handled the whole Columbia PAB process. Carol Costa, our director of photography, was key to constructing the imagery and was heavily involved right from the initial conceptual stage.

Fernanda Frotté, who co-wrote the script and traveled with me to the Caiman Reserve for conversations with locals, which we then used as input around which to rewrite the script, was also there during the editing stage. Isabela Azevedo put in a masterclass as art director. Tatiane Ursuline was our grip, while Suelen Romani was our first assistant (first puller). Karen Grinch was much more than an AD—she went to the Pantanal with me twice and, besides being an excellent AD, helped me build relationships with the locals and the people at Caiman, creating a bond of unity around the project. Patrícia Faria, who did the casting, brought Luisa Bastos on board to play Mia and Helena Albegaria to play Mia's mother. She also traveled to Caiman and interviewed the residents who wanted to be involved in the film, and put together a cast of non-actors based on those talks.

Then there was Karen Harley, who helped us a lot with the editing, and our local producer, Lizandra Moraes. Nara Mendes was very important in the work we did with the non-actors. And, of course, there's Patrícia Gomes, who is doing a tremendous job promoting the film. Promoting a film, battling for festival space, is the hardest part. If a director arrives tired and without Patrícia's energy, I doubt the film's reach would be very broad at all. Finally, Malaika Wouchen and Margo Mars have been crucial in promotion, too. In short, a truly impressive group of women who know how to get things done and show that cinema made by women has immense power.

How did your partnership with Sofia Geld and her production company Uvaia come about for My Mother Is a Cow and your upcoming fiction feature?

I’ve known Sofia for over ten years. We collaborated on Petra Costa’s “Elena”, and it was an enormous pleasure working with her back then.

After that, when I was starting to assemble the team for My Mother Is a Cow, Sofia was the first to really believe in and invest in the project. And, at the same time as we decided to work together on the short—which was fundamental, because this film would not exist without Sofia and Uvaia—we also decided to extend our partnership to my first fiction feature film, Cost of Living (in development).

Uvaia, by Sofia Geld and Daniel Liu, is a production company that hatched with one foot in São Paulo and another in New York, and its goal is to support and nurture innovative perspectives in the global south. It’s a production company that takes a chance on new voices.

Like me, Sofia Geld comes from documentary film. She produced the impressive BEBA, which premiered at Berlin and Toronto and is distributed by Neon/Hulu/Disney+. Sofia is a midwife, basically. Her willingness to listen, her support for the work I want to achieve, and her trust in me as a director are immensely moving and encouraging. Uvaia may have started small, but it’s here to stay and to do great things. It’s like a berry—tiny, but bomb full of flavor and nutrients. It’s got more vitamin C than an orange, and it’s full of antioxidants. A real booster. Laughs.

In many ways, My Mother is a Cow defies conventional narrative structures. Can you speak to your choice of style and form, particularly the film’s focus on silence, rhythm, and imagery?

The process of creating the images was crucial. With our photographer, Carolina Costa, we went to the shooting location to conduct research there. While Fernanda Frotté and I rewrote the script based on conversations with the locals, and Isabela Azevedo began developing the art direction using materials available at the Caiman Reserve, Carol and I sat down to dissect each scene and discuss the references we had for each shot—color, image texture, and framing.

I also think the final result owed a lot to the way we worked in post-production. We worked seamlessly and simultaneously on the editing, sound design, and color correction, which were all integrated. This was key because atmosphere and sensation are so important in the film. And we met Ernie Schaffer, who not only embraced this way of working but also believes it's the way we should be making films today, at a time when technology allows us to move away from a linear logic to this new way of thinking, where editing, color, and sound cross-determine and influence each other.

Furthermore, Antonio Bibriesca's input on the film's fine-tuning was paramount. This is a film where the landscape is breathtaking, and the shots are often long. Antonio opted for fast cutting, which really translated Mia’s experience into film. We’re living it all through the lead character; we’re right there with her in the Pantanal. It was this option for fast cutting that captured the violence of what she was feeling and conveyed it on-screen. The final product hinges upon this contrast between the sublime landscape and fast-cut approach.

Since its premiere at the Venice Biennale and its selection for the Orizzonti competition, the film has been embraced by audiences around the world. What has the international reception of My Mother is a Cow taught you about the universal power of your story?

As I said above, the film has screened at over 60 festivals and in 30-something countries. It received the best short film prize at the BAFICI in Argentina; the Grand Prix at Mecal Pro, the Barcelona International Short and Animation Film Festival; Special Mention from the Catalonia Critics Association, also at Mecal Pro; best screenplay (chosen from among all the films in competition) at the Huesca International Film Festival; Best Director at the International Short Film Festival of Cyprus; and First Special Mention at In The Palace, Bulgaria. At all these places, I felt that people were understanding the film from somewhere different.

Some viewers had spiritual insights, others focused on the environmental message, and still others were struck by the way Mia takes control and becomes her own master. Others were enchanted by the mythical element surrounding the cow and the jaguar. Others were enthralled by the landscape of the Pantanal, and the faces of the people who made the film with us—not only those in front of the camera, but also those whose presence somehow shaped the narrative (many scenes were improvised around these people, or rewritten in dialogue with them).

image host Moara Passoni: screenwriter, producer and director My Mother is a Cow’s film at La Biennale Di Veneza.

How did the process of making My Mother is a Cow compare to your previous works, particularly Ecstasy? What personal or artistic growth have you experienced in the last five years?

I think we're always in motion. And the films we make—whether we like it or not—reflect that, don't they? In any case, both films taught me a lot. And both are films about women dealing with their womanhood in this world, searching for a way to grow, to exist, and to be despite everything that suffocates and oppresses them. In a way, both films taught me a lot about being a woman in our world. And now I'm taking on a new challenge. Telling stories from the world of soccer, a world dominated by men... I think what entertains me is what challenges me. It's this ability that cinema gives you to put yourself close to others. To know others. To be inhabited by others. To transform or know yourself. That's what fascinates me about filmmaking. It allows you to live in manifold worlds; inhabit and be inhabited by so many people and realities.

That’s a luxury in our times… and it gives us the chance to step into other realities, become other to ourselves.

Your work consistently pushes the boundaries of conventional cinema. How do you see the future of filmmaking evolving, and where do you imagine your unique voice fitting into this landscape?

Like many people, I think AI is going to transform a lot of things. On one hand, it’s another tool to master and understand in its full potential. But, on the other hand, I think it might end up having a “reverse” effect. Let me explain: AI will definitely learn to do standard stuff really well. But we all know that following the manual in scriptwriting or directing does not mean you’re going to make a good film. Sometimes, the structure might be “perfect”, but the film’s just lifeless. There’s no aura there to make it throb or vibrate.

On the other hand, if the reproducibility of films according to pre-established structures can be reproduced by AI, it’s unlikely that it’s ever going to produce anything that constitutes a new experience, a new way of narrating, or of reflecting upon the world. I believe it takes people attuned to their world to create something really new; people trying to find solutions in a world that seems increasingly crystallized. In this sense, perhaps AI will free us from the logic of an entertainment industry which, by endlessly reproducing itself, ends up squandering its true power, because it will lose the capacity to process-think-articulate reality in a manner that is meaningful to people.

That might actually help us, as filmmakers, to understand what innovation really means beyond taking fresh content and molding it to the specifications of a pre-existing structure. Perhaps we’ll start to create work in which form and content are intrinsically linked. In other words, immanent works that are true to a narrative logic that produces different perceptions of the world, perceptual shifts.

Now, if AI does ever manage to innovate, I mean profoundly innovate, then the time will have come for us to lie down on the divan and ask ourselves how we became so lost to ourselves that AI has matched or surpassed the human being for power. And we’ll have to find ways to reconnect with whatever is most vital in the potential we still have.

But cinema and art will never cease to exist. Human beings don’t just make films for money (even though it is important, of course, and cinema is one of the most expensive and industry-dependent arts). But people will always find a way, because they have to. The urge is stronger than we are.

In this sense, I don’t think I ever chose to do cinema. Rather, the cinema chose me. In fact, it would have been an insane choice for someone like me, someone who doesn’t come from money. It would have been the worst life choice possible (laughs).

Lastly, I’m a director who is fascinated by the places the language of cinema can take us to. I hope to learn more and more from other directors and to make a small contribution that speaks to and from my perspective on the world, the place where my voice was formed and is molded anew each day.

What do you hope audiences take away from My Mother is a Cow, and how do you envision its impact on both the Brazilian and global film landscape?

I hope each person can find a unique place for dialogue with the film; that it touches people in what is most urgent, profound, and necessary for each viewer. This is because this film is an open work with multiple meanings. This is maybe the opposite of what a short film ought to be: the vehicle for a single narrative line with a clear payoff. I don't know, even Ricardo Piglia once said that a short story tells two stories—one apparent (explicit) and one secret (implicit, hidden). And, as I see it, being caught up in the hidden story is where the real fun lies. Making it percolate inside, producing meanings and perceptions. That, for me, is what makes cinema fun.

In terms of social impact, I hope the film brings some visibility to the Pantanal, this magical Brazilian biome which so few people know about, but which deserves and needs care. I hope it makes us stop and think a little: ‘Oh, so that’s what climate change looks like; it’s already here, prowling around us. The fire is bearing down, closing in.’ The balance of nature is totally skewed, and it's actually changing our immediate reality, and the day will come—of this you can be sure—when it will swallow us whole.

The film touches on themes of ecological violence, but also reclaims narratives about women, the land, and history. How do you balance these interconnected themes in a way that speaks both personally and politically?

For me, this is a film that turns the female gaze on climate change. We women seem to be more open to understanding how all things are interconnected, even if this interconnection isn't obvious. I don't want to generalize about women or be deterministic about gender. But the centuries have made us more observant.

More intelligent in creating survival strategies within oppressive structures. Our solitude, as Marguerite Duras says, has made us witches. And the word "witch" refers to what we are capable of perceiving and producing beyond the dominant logic. Often, the dominant logic is unable to understand us. Or feels threatened by us. It's a shame. They don't know what they're missing.

In fact, there’s a parallel between women and nature, the land (both of which are feminine nouns in Portuguese). The fact that they are majestic, sublime, and defy comprehension is perhaps what makes men want to dominate them in such a destructive manner.

But we’re here to show that reality can be much more fun than that. (Laughs.)

As a filmmaker, how do you navigate the tension between personal storytelling and larger societal issues? How do you see cinema as a tool for cultural reflection and change?

I believe in the maxim that "the more specific and personal, the more universal." I feel that when I create something out of a space in which I have made myself vulnerable, ashamed, and in check, that’s

when the work best reflects and connects with the other—it’s where others can see themselves in it. Vulnerability is key in this sense. And I keep looking for more and more ways to sustain the vulnerability throughout the process of writing or making a film.

Every human being, every biography, is flooded with history, whether we realize it or not. Our job as filmmakers is sometimes just to reveal the invisible threads that connect one to the other. Sometimes, that feels uncanny or uncomfortable. Sometimes, realizing the extent to which our being is really a “being-with", because we are all part of the same world-producing logic, albeit at different points, can prove highly disruptive.

For as long as we’ve known what it means to be human, since back when we were still living in caves, storytelling has been what defines us. Cinema is just another way to tell stories, and, as such, I believe that its power is part of our make-up as human beings.

How has it been? My Mother is a cow journey, and what do you envision for it in the next steps?

When I began the journey of My Mother is a Cow, I never imagined how far a short film could travel. Since premiering at Venice Orizzonti in 2024, the film has gone on to win Best Short Film at BAFICI, Best Director at Cyprus International Short Film Festival, and the Grand Prize at Mecal Pro, among others. To date, it has screened at 13 Oscar-qualifying festivals worldwide. From the start, its path has been defined by both artistic recognition and the urgency of the story it tells.

In the United States, the film premiered at AFI Fest (competition for best short fiction), a festival I have long admired for its curatorial vision. It later screened at the Columbia University Film Festival, where it was selected by both an external jury and the student jury for the awards night, and at the Palm Springs International ShortFest (in competition for Best Fiction Short under 15 minutes) and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (in competition for best fiction short film). This fall, it will continue its U.S. journey at the Nashville Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Internationally, the film has already reached audiences across Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Upcoming stops include Taiwan, Chile, India, Canada, Brussels, and Morocco. In Japan, the Shorts Shorts Film Festival invited five women directors from around the world for its autumn edition, and I was honored to be one of them. As part of this recognition, My Mother is a Cow will also be presented in a Brazilian cinema showcase at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

But beyond its travels, my deepest hope is that the film carries with it something larger: to amplify the voice of the Pantanal, the world’s largest flooded plain. This unique ecosystem—an ecological treasure and cultural symbol of Brazil—is now under severe threat. My dream is for My Mother is a Cow to take the Pantanal to audiences everywhere, creating awareness and sparking urgent dialogue about its future. About our future.

As the film enters its next cycle of Oscar-qualifying festivals, I am reminded that cinema is never a solitary act. It lives through the passion of audiences, the dedication of programmers, and the care of collaborators who carry it forward. My wish is that this story, born in Brazil, continues to echo far beyond its borders—reaching new viewers, inspiring conversations, and contributing to a broader recognition of Brazilian cinema on the global stage.

Following its world premiere in Venice, the film continues its international journey with upcoming screenings at the Nashville Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, Kaohsiung Film Festival, and other prestigious festivals worldwide.

It became clear: Moara Passoni is sculpting a language of sensation, memory, and rupture. Her work expands the emotional and poetic possibilities of the medium, inviting us not just to watch, but to feel, to question, and to emerge changed.