Critics reviews

In contrast to those who begin their film careers as film school graduates, there are those filmmakers who go abroad to shape their careers, like Galician director Eloy Domínguez Serén. His fascinating video journal No Cow on the Ice chronicles the filmmaker's life in Sweden as he makes a living in construction and tries hard to integrate and learn the language.

Beginning as a familiar lament about migration and alienation, the film actually begins to cheer up considerably once the filmmaker, left to his own devices, starts really learning his new native language and trying to fit in. Despite all that cold water, ice and snow, it's a surprisingly sunny lesson about the drive to culturally displace oneself, and how to cope with the consequences of that drive.

Language and landscape are deeply connected: As this endlessly curious filmmaker's Swedish improves, the film's images also become more sophisticated.