Coming to a theater near you this August: the 2023 CatVideoFest, a curated collection of the cutest, funniest, and most entertaining cat videos of the year.
Feline film curator extraordinaire Will Braden has watched between 12,000 and 15,000 videos and hand-picked the best ones to include in the 70-minute compilation, which will be shown in theaters across the U.S. and beyond.
When you attend CatVideoFest, not only will you see some fantastic videos, but you’ll be helping cats as well, because every theater is teamed up with a shelter, and they receive a portion of the ticket sales.
“It’s part of the requirements, part of the DNA of the festival,” said Braden.
“(The shelters) usually will have people at the theater, you know, signing up volunteers,” said Braden. “Sometimes they’ll even have cats for adoption.”
Braden said sometimes a shelter will host a screening on their own as a part of an auction or other fundraiser.
“We’re basically open to anything,” he said. “If you want to project it on the side of a barn to raise money for some feral cat colony, we’re OK with it. As long as it’s helping cats in need, we say OK.”
A Carefully Curated Collection of Cat Videos
These are not your typical short clips that might pop up in your Instagram feed.
“I think that if you ask the average person like what is an online video, they’ll think of some sort of really quick little thing, sort of like in America’s Funniest Home Videos, a kind of little blooper,” Braden said. “We have lots of those, and those are great, but I feel like if someone came to the theater and they just saw 75 minutes of that, it would feel a little bit like well, is this really curated?”
Braden aims to find the best of those popular clips, but also videos people may not have seen, such as animations, music videos, and short documentaries.
For a video to be considered, the content has to be something that’s safe for a cat, that the cats are into and seem to like.
“The real criteria is just, is there a cat in it? Is it interesting, funny, or educational to people that are going to be sitting in theaters?” said Braden.
An overarching issue with Braden is determining if the cat in the video is OK with it.
“I have people submit things where they’ve come up with a funny idea for a video, but I can see the cat is just going, ‘Oh, God, please don’t make me do this again,’” he said. “And not only does that make me feel uncomfortable, it’s going to make everybody in the crowd watching VideoFest feel uncomfortable. So, it has to be something that’s safe for a cat, that the cats are into and seem to like it, and beyond that, then I’m willing to look at everything.”
Kitties of the Silver Screen
The first iteration of the cat video festival was held in 2012 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Braden won the prestigious Golden Kitty Award for his video featuring tuxedo cat Henri Le Chat Noir, the existential philosopher whose ennui resonated with millions of people around the world.
The late film critic Roger Ebert declared it “the best internet cat video ever made,” and actor Christopher Walken dubbed it “hilarious.”
After his big win, Braden began working with the Walker Art Center, curating for the festival. In 2016, the Walker decided to move on from the festival, so Braden took it over and it’s now based in Seattle, where he lives.
Braden spends a lot of time going through submissions, as well as tracking down the creators of videos he finds.
“It’s important that I find whoever made the video originally, explain to them what we do, get their permission, get an agreement in place,” he said.
If he can’t find out where it originally came from, he won’t use it.
“I want people to know if their videos are going to be in it and make sure that they’re OK with it, and then, of course, hopefully they can come see it on a on a big screen,” he said.
To find a showing near you, the CatVideoFest website has a searchable “where to watch” page.
Screenings start at the beginning of August and roll out from there.
“We’re adding a new theater every day,” said Braden.