Reader Susan McWilliams called my attention to a funny (and touching) cat documentary that’s a finalist in the 2013 PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) film contest. The 16-minute video is called “CatCam,” described as “a film about a cat that constantly disappears from his home.” The owner fits out the cat with a camera, and the film is the result.
More from the PBS film description:
Mr. Lee is an adopted stray cat who routinely disappears from his North Carolina home. Where does he go? To find out, an engineer straps a camera to the cat, inadvertently creating a media sensation.
About the filmmaker
Seth Keal makes his directorial debut with CatCam, which won the Jury Prize at SXSW and the Best Online Short at the Tribeca Film Festival, amongst other festival awards. Keal’s previous credit includes producer of Emmy nominated Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. He is also credited with multiple roles in the production for television content for National Geographic Channel and the History Channel. He currently resides in New York City.
I particularly like the ending, in which the cat Mr. Lee adopts owner Jürgen despite his diehard dislike of cats. They have a way of doing that. (Don’t miss Mr. Lee getting his shrimp-filled trophy!)
You can vote for this film, or others, here.
Mr. Lee is very sweet. When he knocked one shrimp off his trophy, I loved how he looked so attentively at the fallen shrimp.
I suspect cats equate the non-fussing of people who dislike cats with calm people.
I duly voted for this one. 🙂
There’s a definite lack of imagination in there ; they see the cat, a predatory animal, being away from their human staff for several days and coming back not hungry. Now how could that possibly happen? Clearly the predatory animal must be being fed by other humanoid staff. The possibility that he (she?) is catching, killing and eating other animals without the assistance of humans … doesn’t get considered.
They seem perfectly nice people, but they haven’t done much cat-watching before being enslaved by MrLee, had they?
Are they art??? If the question hadn’t come from a Dutch source, then I’d wonder what the nature of their cigarette fillings were.
A lack of imagination, indeed. 😀
Good one, Jerry. I didn’t know what “shrimp-filled trophy” meant, and got a good laugh when I saw.
I can see a lot of cat owners wanting a cat cam. The person who figures out how to compensate for the side to side motion when the cat is moving will make a fortune.
…and to make it small enough that the cat won’t mind it. And the camera would have to have it’s own GPS, as it would need to be on a breakaway collar.
I notice that the film gives no answer to the question, Does Mr. Lee have a second home?.
Jürgen Perthold needs to read Bruce Fogle’s The Cat’s Mind for enlightenment about feline social interaction, particularly their preference for noise and threats over action.
Jerry, since you love cats so much, I thought you should take a look at this article in The Onion; it’s entitled, “Are Your Cats Old Enough to Learn about Jesus?”
Here’s the link:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/are-your-cats-old-enough-to-learn-about-jesus,11206/
Hope you enjoy it!