Holy Cow (2024)

[BluBonnet]

Coming soon to theaters in the US, UK and Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q55naIp7PCI

[BluBonnet]

Rural Coming-Of-Age Tale ‘Holy Cow’ Poised To Travel The World After Charming Audiences In France

French director Louise Courvoisier’s feature directorial debut Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux) follows a teenager raised in a farming community in the Eastern department of Jura who embarks on a mission to make a prize-winning wheel of Comté cheese in the face of a series of hard knocks.

The movie may not seem like a crowd-pleaser on paper, nor a box office breakout, yet the film has drawn close to 1 million spectators at home since its release on December 11, 2024, for a rough gross of $6.5M on the back of a $2.1M (€2M) budget. It recently won best first film at the French César awards.

Holy Cow is now traveling the world after selling to some 30 territories after its buzzy premiere in the Cannes Un Certain Regard last May caught the attention of buyers up and down the Croisette.

The title is currently poised for theatrical releases in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films on March 28 and the UK by Conic Films on April 11, having hit cinemas in Benelux (Paradiso), Germany (Pandora) and Switzerland (Filmcoopie) at the beginning of the year. Outside of Europe, the film has sold to China (Hugoeast/Century Carnival), Hong Kong (First Distributors) and Japan (King records) and the Middle East (Moving Turtle) among other territories.

Holy Cow was shot on location in the wooded, low mountain Jura region, where Courvoisier was raised by her Swiss father and German Canadian mother, classical musicians who decided to quit their careers specialized in Baroque music to set up a farm and be closer to nature.

The feature is a family affair with parents credited as composers; her sister as its production designer and brother, as chief set builder. The amateur local cast is led by Clément Faveau in the role of 18-year-old protagonist Totone, whose carefree summer spent drinking at open-air discoes, chasing girls and getting into the occasional fight comes to an abrupt halt when his cheesemaker father suddenly dies.

Finding himself the sole carer for his younger, but mercifully sweet, sister and desperate to make a living, Totone embarks on a mission to master the art of making Comté cheese in the hope of winning a big ticket prize in a local contest. Unsurprisingly, he has a lot to learn.

“We were confident about the film going into Cannes – for its mix of feel-good and ‘terroir’ [agricultural] setting– but it exceeded our expectations, taking off from the first market screening,” recounts Agathe Maurac, head of sales at Pyramide International.

[Aunt Peg]

Please note that despite what this site and French vendors are reporting the French Blu Ray edition DOES NOT HAVE ENGLISH SUBTITLES.

[BluBonnet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2spLKwDPUk