Crazy Cat Lady
2019 · 5m · United States
Directed by Carrie Wachob, James Winters
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tender
When the world is about to end and Betty can't make it home to her beloved cat Waffles, she has to find another way to spend her last moments on Earth. A darkly comic miniature on loneliness, attachment, and apocalypse.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects apocalypse to be about humanity's last stand—Wachob and Winters torpedo that cliché by making it about a woman's refusal to be anywhere but with her cat, which is either profound or ridiculous depending on your tolerance for sentiment wearing a deadpan mask.
The film's formal restraint—its commitment to Betty's intimate problem rather than spectacle—places it in a lineage of quiet character studies that find catastrophe in the personal; the tonal balance between gallows humor and genuine tenderness suggests filmmakers acutely aware of how to hold contradictions.
The decision to anchor the entire apocalypse in one woman's single-minded devotion to getting home to her cat—and to play that straight without irony—is what makes this work; it's a four-minute film that trusts one emotional truth completely.
Festivals
- Create50 The Impact 2018, Winner — Screenplay & Filmmaking