The Cats Of Gokogu Shrine
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An ancient Shinto shrine in a traditional Japanese village, home to dozens of street cats, is the timeless setting for this meditative observational documentary selected for Berlinale 2024.
Kazuhiro Soda’s latest film is set in the region where he also filmed Oyster Factory (SFF 2016) and Inland Sea (SFF 2018). It’s a mesmerizingly beautiful location for this tale of feline-human interaction. Tabbies, gingers, calicos, and other breeds lounge around the ‘Cat Shrine’ receiving food from visitors. The community is largely tolerant, but the volume of cats and people is beginning to intrude on the serenity of this spiritual environment and a new approach is needed. Soda lived on the island for years, and his intimate familiarity with the locality enables him to capture every detail of this world with humour and tenderness.
Limited seats are available for patrons requiring access for wheelchairs, low vision and hearing loop. Please contact our ticketing team directly on 1300 733 733 or tickets@sff.org.au to complete your booking.Special Guest
Kazuhiro Soda
Director
Kazuhiro Soda is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and author. His films have been invited to numerous international festivals, including his debut feature Campaign (2007), which premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won the Peabody Award in the United States. Soda was also a recipient of the Marek Nowicki Lifetime Achievement Prize.
- Program Strand
- International Documentaries
- Original Title
- Gokōgu no Neko
- Year
- 2024
- Classification
- All Ages
- Country
- Japan, USA
- Language
- In Japanese with English subtitles
- Director
- Kazuhiro Soda
- Producer
- Kazuhiro Soda, Kiyoko Kashiwagi
- Cinematographer
- Kazuhiro Soda
- Editor
- Kazuhiro Soda
- Premiere
- Australian Premiere
- Genre
- Documentary, Asia, Religion & Belief, Animals & Creatures
- Company Credits
- Sales Agent: Asian Shadows
- Official Website
- Visit →
