Short Pick Of The Day: ‘There’s A Cat Under The Car’ by Islena Neira

“At night there is a cat under a car, it is very calm, until three noisy kids start to play with it. When the game begins to degenerate, the cat calls for an unexpected ally…”

Graduation film by Islena Neira made at EMCA Angoulême, France, 2019. (Click on CC for English subtitles.)

Notes from the filmmaker:

It was all an adventure making this film because there were a lot of new challenges for me as dialogs, light, lots of different characters, watercolor backgrounds, cars, cats, life. I had a pretty clear idea when I wrote it, but once I did the animatic I saw that It was not the way I wanted to tell this story. So I remade it almost entirely before the animatic’s screening at school.

I’m very happy with this film. I had the chance of drawing lots of cats and watch a lot of YouTube videos about cats… ahem… for reference, yes. It was fun making the music, looking for the awesome kids that gave me the voices. I took lots of pictures of Angoulême because I love this place and I wanted the story to happen here. Drawing for this film was very refreshing, It’s so nice when I can be as direct as possible in my drawings.