The Private Life of a Cat / 33 Animals of Santa Claus
Mon 17.06.
20:00
Cinema
Arsenal 1
Director
Alexander Hammid, Maya Deren
USA / 1947
22 min.
/ 16 mm
/ English intertitles
A domestic space given over entirely to felines with humans nowhere in sight: a couple of cats pair off, start a family, have a litter of kittens and watch as they grow and play. Frequently shot from the feline perspective, this silent, black-and-white observation of a non-human family contains all the requisite cuteness of the contemporary cat video craze, albeit augmented with experimental textures of fur and flesh and an extended birth scene of unflinchingly explicit detail. (jl)
Director
Laila Pakalniņa
Latvia / 2011
50 min.
/ Digital file
/ Original version with English subtitles
Original language
Latvian
A human apartment captured in crisp black and white also forms the central setting of 33 ZVĒRI ZIEMASSVĒTKI VECĪTIM, the hilarious documentary portrait of a middle-aged woman named Santa Claus who cheerfully shares her pre-fab apartment with 33 (!) different pets: dogs, cats, degus and rabbits, a guinea pig, chinchilla, pigeon and crow. The perpetual, chaotic din made by the animals covers everything, even their owner’s constant chattering, which soon begins to resembles another animal noise itself. And the cats’ frequently baleful gaze soon also reveals that not everyone sees the living arrangement with the same enthusiasm. (jl)
Funded by:
