The Cow (1969 film)

The Cow is a 1969 Iranian film directed by Dariush Mehrjui, based on a story by Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi, about a villager named Masht Hassan whose most prized possession, his cow, dies while he is away, prompting the other villagers to hide her death from him out of fear of his reaction. When Hassan learns the truth he descends into a delusion that he himself has become the cow, a transformation the village cannot cure. Delayed by Iranian censors before its domestic release and later smuggled to the 1971 Venice Film Festival, where it won the International Critics' Prize, the film is widely credited with launching the Iranian New Wave.