25 Cats From Qatar

Synopsis: The nation of Qatar has a street cat population equal to the population of the entire country. Disease is rampant, and local adoption is rare. A Midwestern cafe owner decides to bring 25 cats to Wisconsin.

Review:

This film is 95 minutes of empathy captured by the director, Mye Hoang and then shared with the audience. Within a short period of time we are introduced to some of the titular cats on the streets on Doha and then the protagonist of our tale Katy McHugh. She is the owner of a cat cafe located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called Sip & Pur Cat Cafe who has leveraged her experience in her day job as a flight attendant to bring cats locally and around the world to her cafe to try to get them adopted.

This specific iteration of trying to support international cats has Katy heading to Doha, Katar where she has been in contact with many of the heroes of this story the “rescuers” on the ground. Written onscreen and through conversations we the audience are brought up to speed that there are about 3 million Qatar citizens in Doha and about 8 million ex-pats who come and work for a short period of time. This has lead to a problem that is a never-ending flow of cats being “dumped” as people go home. There are lots of reasons as the film goes into depth explaining but the reality is a huge amount of cats on the street, in a desert environment, that they aren’t ready for or equipped to survive. We meet people who are some of the most empathetic and caring humans, who are saving these cats from infection and disease, providing them food, shelter and love when their owners and the rest of society has forgotten them.

The film is a slow motion thriller because the process, logistics and paperwork required to allow these animals to be brought to the United States is arduous and the timing is precise. Multiple visits to curate the manifest of cats that will become the lucky ones heading to a new life, but there are also some cats that as Katy is on the streets catch her eye and steal her heart. The film does a good job of not overwhelming the audience with requiring a game of memory but does name and introduce each cat that is in manifest to head to America. There are lots of types of documentaries but a style I am partial to is where we are introduced to a problem or issue, it is personalized or humanized and then we see the issue come full circle for good or ill. 25 Cats From Qatar lands the plane both literally and figuratively, the film is being toured by the director, if it is in your town go see it.