Locarno review: Goats (2025)
Pardi di Domani
International Competition
A boat approaches the island of Unije, located in the Lošinj aquatorium in the Northern Adriatic. The island itself seems like nothing special; it is small, contains one village, a couple of beaches and an abandoned navy outpost. As the title card at the beginning of Tonći Gaćina’s short documentary Goats!, premiering at the Pardi di Domani competition of Locarno, informs us, that there was a state-run goat farming project that was quickly abandoned forty years ago. The result is that the people on the island are outnumbered by goats by 20:1.
The boat carries the hunters who are sent to “fix” the situation. The massacre ensues. The aftermath of it is extremely ugly and vile. Whenever something happens, the solution is way more violent than the problem ever was. While disposing of the dead bodies, we overhear people commenting that it was not the first hunt and not even the most brutal one: in some previous cases, the goats were shot from a helicopter.
Gaćina uses the aesthetics of the long shots from a distance to set the stage, only to make a point by zooming in on the details of the aftermath. The cinematography by Antonio Mudantino serves the purpose perfectly, and so does Dora Slakoper’s precise editing. The colour palette is impossibly warm, the largely barren landscape signals the ongoing sense of the apocalypse, while the downtempo pacing highlights the sense of factuality.
Opting for such an observational style and refraining from commenting directly, the filmmaker crafted an impressionable documentary that serves as a study of how easy it is to turn to violence when in a position of power. It is a strong, eloquent criticism of anthropocentrism and playing god, which is the usual human behaviour. In this case, it was performed twice: once to create a problem and then to immediately eradicate the consequences.
Original title:
Koze!
Year:
2025
Runtime:
20’ 27’’
Countries:
Croatia, France
Language:
Croatian
Directed by:
Tonći Gaćina
Written by:
Tonći Gaćina
Cinematography by:
Antonio Mudantino
Editing by:
Dora Slakoper
Sound design by:
Ivan Zelić
Colourist:
Tomislav Stojanović
Produced by:
Tibor Keser
Co-produced by:
Hélène
Mitjavile, Théo Laboulandine
Production
company: Kompot
Co-production
companies: Melocoton, Cine Club Split,
Association Lau
