a party for time travellers

Description

Lorne Cowie, a depressed police officer in the Scottish Highlands, arrests a strange woman claiming to be a time-traveller from the future. She explains that the world will soon be killed by climate change and the only way to stop it is to kill those responsible before it’s too late. However, she’s not targeting oil tycoons, she’s just killed a Highland cow! She claims, because people will eat less beef in the 21st century, more cows will live for longer, fart more methane, and accelerate climate change. Lorne dismisses the time-traveller as insane and she’s convicted to prison for two years. But, over that time, what she said would happen starts happening and the cow population explodes. Lorne becomes convinced she’s right and decides to help. Visiting the time-traveller in prison, Lorne says that one person trying to kill all the cows to stop climate change is insane. There are too many! Instead, they have to start a global movement that will inspire everyone to change their behaviour and start ‘eating all the meat’ to try and make the cow extinct before it’s too late. The time-traveller isn’t convinced that’ll work but, appreciating Lorne’s enthusiasm, she agrees to ‘do it anyway’. After she’s released they attempt a series of protests cum publicity stunts (think Just Stop Oil) to inform the public to ‘eat more meat’ to stop the rise of the cows. Inevitably, most people think they’re insane and ignore them. The cow population continues to grow but Lorne and the Time Traveller fall in love. Getting married, the couple try and balance their adult responsibilities of rent and bills with their goal of saving the world. They’re happy together, despite their failing efforts, until, suddenly, the time-traveller dies. Left to fight the rise of the cows on his own, Lorne falls back into a depression at the time-traveller’s funeral. He realises how absurd their fight has been and that no individual can ever truly make a difference. He predicts his life, alone, will be a failure as climate change is inevitable following the growth in the cow population. Desperate, he knows he’ll eventually throw ‘a party for time-travellers’ hoping someone from the future will arrive to prove there is a future when humans survive. But he knows no-one will arrive. Meaning no-one will survive. And so wonders what’s the point of doing it at all? But, the memory of the time-traveller’s boundless enthusiasm will inspire him to ‘do it anyway’. Rousing him to keep fighting despite certain failure.

Biblical Connection

My film is based on the covenant outlined in Numbers 19 commanding the Israelites to slaughter a red heifer to cleanse them from the greatest of defilements: death. It’s a cryptic piece of scripture but its context, and parallels to the expiation of Jesus for all humankind, reveal its, and my films, true meaning. Growing up in rural Scotland, surrounded by my own ‘red heifers’ (Highland cows) I connected to this ambiguous covenant and the modern day parallels of its context. In Numbers, the Israelites are between their exodus from Egypt and their crossing of the Jordan river. This liminal state echoes my own, and I’m sure many others, feelings that the fear led choices of previous generations (like those of the Israelites in Numbers 14) have left us stuck and impotent in the face of Climate Change. The illogical idea of sacrificing a highland cow (the ‘red heifer’ of my adaptation) so as to bring about future salvation will satirise our, often irrational, attempts to bring about collective change through individual action. But, underneath this comic absurdism, is the true meaning of both the covenant of Numbers 19 and my film: salvation is only possible through faith and sacrifice.