A Cow in the Sky

“I have a cow in the sky but cannot drink her milk.”

This Ethiopian adage that our protagonist recalls hearing often from his grandfather beautifully illustrates the struggle between one’s dream and one’s reality. Our short film, “A Cow in the Sky,” is based on a true story and one that we felt needed to be told.

In November of 1988, a little boy in Ethiopia suddenly became the victim of hate when his father was murdered by white supremacists in the United States. In our short film, a small but poignant piece of a much larger story, the boy, depicted as a teenager in love with airplanes and flying, sets out on his first solo flight. During this flight, the boy ruminates on his past, his father, his identity and the American dream. When potential tragedy strikes, he must rely on his wits and talent, and rises up to become the hero of his own story.

The murder of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant and college student in Portland, OR in 1988 and the subsequent criminal convictions and most famously the historic civil trial that followed, started a ripple effect that spread from Portland to San Diego and quickly the entire US. Mulugeta’s death and the civil trial led by the Southern Poverty Law Center, financially crippled America’s most notorious white supremacist at the time, Tom Metzger and his organization WAR, White Aryan Resistance. The trial became a blueprint for fighting hate groups and led to the current system of tracking hate crimes in America. I was a young law school student in California at the time and I found myself caught in these ripples as I worked closely with the lawyer tasked with collecting the monetary judgment for Mulugeta’s family from WAR and its leader Tom Metzger.

My time working on behalf of Mulugeta’s family was a life changing experience, an introduction to both the worst of what America has been and the best of what it can be. However, it was my circling back to colleagues many years later that truly helped me understand the bigger story I was a small part of. There are two parts to this bigger story. Part One: What I didn’t know was that after Mulugeta’s murder his son followed in his father’s footsteps by immigrating to America where he pursued an education, built a career, started a family, and a created fulfilling life. Part Two: I didn’t know it at the time, but Tom Metzger’s predictions of an America deeply influenced by the hate he was stoking in the late 1980’s would prove painfully accurate.

I had shared my experiences working on this case with my wife and partner C. Fraser Press numerous times. After a recent chance meet up with some of the people involved with the case, we both knew it was the right time to begin to tell this story. We secured some rights and started work on A Cow in the Sky.

We chose to blend animation, showing our protagonist’s flight and his memories with actual historical video footage and sound from the time of the murder, including Metzger and the infamous trial. This footage is used to both highlight the demons our protagonist is wrestling with and to serve as points of origin for both the events that shaped our story and aspects of America as we are living it today.

The process of making this film has been humbling and inspiring, even more so as we assembled a diverse and talented group of artists, including Grammy nominated artist Aminé who is from Portland and of Ethiopian decent, to help us bring it to life. We hope A Cow in the Sky brings insight to the immigrant experience, exposes parts of American history and current culture many today are trying to erase, and is a moving and entertaining 12 minutes and 17 seconds for you.

Darren Press
Co-Director, A Cow in the Sky