Crossing Europe

Cat on My Mind

1 hr. 25 min. | Documentary | Pegi 13

Acclaimed Latvian documentarian Laila Pakalniņa constructs a portrait of an unknown photographer from an archive of black-and-white negatives discovered by chance beside a rubbish bin. Naming him Anton, she imagines him and his son Raitis photographing neighbours, piglets, domestic scenes and a trip to the seaside. He also recalls a long-lost cat. Pakalniņa spins a playfully chaotic, formally adventurous tale that pays tribute to analogue photography and twentieth-century Latvia.
Laila Pakalniņa

Laila Pakalniņa

Laila Pakalniņa was born in Latvia in 1962. She graduated in television journalism from Moscow State University in 1986 and in documentary film directing from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in 1991. Her films regularly screen at international festivals and are also familiar to Lithuanian audiences, including those at Scanorama. Blurring the boundary between fiction and documentary, The Shoe was the first feature from independent Latvia to appear at Cannes, where it screened in Un Certain Regard in 1998.
Languages
Latvian
Subtitles
Lithuanian, English
Original title
Es domāju par kaķi
Produced
2025: Latvia

Film information

Director
Laila Pakalniņa
Cinematography
Gints Bērziņš
Cast
Andreja Strokins, Ralfs Neifalts, Mikass Bucmis, Laila Gintere
More information
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