Director: Danilo Stanimirović
Writers: Danilo Stanimirović & Irena Parezanović
Cast: Sergej Totić, Jovana Stević, Ivan Tomić, Milica Cimeša
Running time: 13mins
Film festivals are expensive – and so they often struggle to break even, let alone make a profit. With submission fees often posing as the only dependable source of revenue that many festivals have access to, that can make granting waivers difficult.
Stories told by artists working on a shoe-string budget, or who are hit by censorship, or subjected to international sanctions, still need a platform, though. That’s why Indy Film Library’s Saturday Matinees series has returned for a seventh season.
Over this most recent run of matinees, IFL will be showcasing work from places where monetary and legal constraints have prevented the free and easy communication of their artistic or political visions.
The first film in our free-to-view programme is Cats, by Serbian filmmaker Danilo Stanimirović. Returning to Saturday Matinees after previously using it to showcase 5/3/0 – which was also co-written by Irena Parezanović. Once again, the pair collaborate to address overlooked social issues, but far from the colour and noise of the first, this is a quieter tale about a young child at risk of falling between the cracks of a world apparently completely disinterested in him.
Eight-year-old Serbian migrant Miša (Sergej Totić) is struggling to find his voice, alienated by his environment, and neglected by his parents, after moving to Switzerland. When he finds an abandoned kitten in the street, on his way to school, something about it speaks to him. Scooping the tiny creature into his rucksack, he quietly smuggles it into class – during which a procession of other children practices German, learning a set-list of standardised sentences they will be expected to call on relentlessly as they continue on the conveyor-belt to meet adult social and economic expectations: name, occupation, country of origin.
Filmed entirely in black-and-white, this drab, dispiriting scene serves to set the tone for the wider film. Obviously, I don’t begrudge children being taught the primary language of their new home – or the efforts of the teacher (Milica Cimeša) who is ultimately the only person that takes an active interest in the lives of these children. But the curriculum here reflects a wider social current which is purely interested in making these kids fit into a narrow set of expectations – and if they take an interest in something beyond those confines, it is something which is treated as a problem.
It is small wonder that Miša is completely checked out from the scenario – to the extent he has not said a word to anyone since the semester began. But with the kitten in his care, suddenly this shifts – he begins to build bridges with his fellow students, and also to break barriers with his teacher. The tiny cat serves as both a conversation starter, and a wordless cry for help: for much-needed attention that has not been forthcoming at home.
Indeed, Miša’s parents are so unengaged in his life that they accidentally leave him in the car after the drive home from school. It is a tragi-comic moment, which works to a comedic beat, but where the punchline carries a profoundly concerning realisation. In their own quest to ‘assimilate’ as quickly as possible, his mother and father have heavily internalised a sense of shame against anything beyond the ‘average’ Swiss ideal. Miša, a child who is still steadfastly himself – not a composition of average points, but a unique collection of impulses and ambitions – has become a symbol of their own ‘otherness’, one to either be nagged into conformity, or to be distanced from.
It is a bitter-sweet portrait of childhood in a new country, one which doesn’t necessarily offer a hopeful sense of closure at its end. While it might not be the utterly depressing Kes ending we might expect from social realist films where kids find their feet by caring for an animal, it is notable that that black-and-white lens never gives way to technicolour – hinting that whatever little victories might occur here, the wider world remains repressive and resentful to children who do not seem to conveniently fit the expectations of a country’s government and economy.
The film will be available to view for free in full from 09:00 UK time on Saturday the 24th of January, until the end of the weekend, via our Saturday Matinees theatre page. Viewers will also be invited to rate the film out of five, to help determine the winner of this Saturday Matinees season.
As the film is still trying to gain access to other festivals, the page is password protected. Use the code IFLMATINEE26 to access the film.
Stay tuned for our final film next week!