Tropic Sprockets Goes Streaming / Quarantine Cat Film Festival

By Ian Brockway

Directed by Brian Mendelssohn, “Quarantine Cat Film Festival” is a compilation that brings together the most entertaining feline videos from more than 1,200 submissions filmed during the COVID-19 Quarantines, curated by Row House Cinema in Pittsburgh.

Domestic house cats (species name Felis catus) have a special bond with humans. As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the United States by number of pets owned, after fresh water fish, with 95 million cats owned according to Wikipedia.

Cats are social animals and secrete pheromones. They have superior hearing and night vision and are most active in the wee hours. They crave milk, mouse-flesh and meat. Although they can kill tiny lizards, fish and rats, they often toy with their prey. The social critic Camille Paglia writes that cats are essentially creatures of self-interest “both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules…they are laws unto themselves. Cats are secretive, capable of ambivalence, its ears listening to a distant sound while its eyes falsely rest on us.”

Indeed in watching “Quarantine Cat Fest” there are many moments that point to this observation, but the film is chock full of humor and fun. There are cats and kittens getting stuck in jars, chasing laser pointers, running obstacle courses, scrambling up walls, sipping water from toilets, yowling scarily, panting. They bat their yellow eyes, meditating on the occult, if not skyscrapers filled to the brim with milk and heavy cream.

These cats are diplomatic for the most part, careful not to reveal their nocturnal desires. Fat, overlarge cats purr luxuriously and cuddle with their human partners, limbs splayed, paws outstretched as if dreaming of a murderous leap. They know how to appear the furry jester meowing and jumping in playful circles. They also sweetly assist their families by cozying up to them during these trying times, yet their wide sorcerer eyes tell of other pagan possibilities closer to their roots.

“Quarantine Cat Festival” makes for great family fun, disclosing the mischief behind every whisker, while also hinting at something covert and hidden behind many a closet door.

This film is part of the Tropic Virtual Film Festival. For more info and to buy tickets, go to https://catfest.vhx.tv/products/quarantine-cat-film-festival-tropic-cinema

Write Ian at [email protected]

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