The cat video was shown in cinemas in the USA and Canada for two days and collected $280.

The Cat Video Fest took place in cinemas across the US and Canada on August 3-4. To be precise, this is not so much a festival as a film, lasting just over an hour and assembled from home videos of cats collected around the world. On “festival days,” a film about these furry creatures is shown in more than a hundred cinemas in the United States and Canada. For example, this weekend the Cat Video Fest was shown at the prestigious IFC Center in Manhattan, New York, the publication writes Variety.

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This year's Cat Video Fest raised $280, double what it raised in 000. Of this, $2023 will go to animal shelters and animal rights organizations. Due to the film's success, almost half of the theaters where it was shown increased their number of screenings.

The Cat Video Fest event has been led by Will Braden since 2016. He says he spends a third of the year collecting clips and getting permission from content creators. Another four months are spent editing the film, and finally a third of the year is spent working with distributor Oscilloscope Labs.

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“Cat Video Fest is my full-time job. Even my business cards say that I watch cat videos,” Braden noted. “Although, to be honest, my wife, a primary school teacher in a public school, earns more than me.”

Braden graduated from the Seattle Film Institute in 2006. This year's festival featured an excerpt from his own series of short films, Henri, about a "depressed French existential cat."

“I didn’t have a plan to do cats when I was in film school, but I certainly didn’t think about being the next Martin Scorsese,” he joked. “As long as people are happy, and as long as we raise money for cats in need, I will have the best job in the world.”

The cat movie from Cat Video Fest is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet. There is nothing in common between the clips. Even visually they are different: some are shot in vertical format, some are expanded to full screen; some are shot in high definition, others are said to be “recorded with a toaster.”

The videos are carefully selected by Braden, who says he watches 15 cat videos a year and selects about 000 for the film.

“This time the viewer will see cats from other countries, stories that haven’t even appeared online yet, excerpts from student films,” Braden explained. His job is to lure people to the cinemas so that they will pay for tickets. “When you watch videos of cats at home, you are unlikely to be able to raise money for cat shelters.”

Amateur videos show grumpy and angry cats, helpful and cute cats. Cats play the piano, they piss off dogs. Cats jump from cliffs to pathetic music, cats feed kittens to the monologue of Stewie from Family Guy, who says “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” Cats climb the kitchen walls to a dubstep remix from 2007's The Simpsons Movie.

But the best part of the Cat Video Fest is the children's laughter that echoes through the cinema halls. And while Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance claims that “childless cat ladies are ruining America,” it’s nice to see kids enjoying cute cats.

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When asked about Vance and his remarks, Braden sighs: “His comments about ¨childless cat ladies¨ are telling: in saying that, he condemns and ridicules people who enjoy the activities they love. The great thing about Cat Video Fest is that people come to the cinemas, rejoice together and do not see anything strange or reprehensible in their interest in cats.”

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