THE CAT IN THE WALL
O.V. in Bulgarian and English subtitled in Spanish
Lightness, sanity and sense of humour. These are not common qualities when we talk about stories like the one of Alena, a single Bulgarian mother who lives in a social housing building in the London of Brexit and gentrification. She is the only one in the block who does not live off crumbles, and who in between jobs as a waitress tries to make her way as an architect. A sudden disaster against which she tries to mobilize the neighbors, the visit of her brother Vlad, a historian reconverted into an antenist, and the adoption of an orange cat (the mythical: cat on the wall), constitute the tragicomedy in this film (presented at Locarno) whose characters will be difficult to dissociate ourselves from.
Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova
Mina Mileva studied animation filmmaking at La Cambre in Brussels and at the National Academy of Performing Arts and Film in Sofia, and worked for over a decade in the British animation industry. Vesela Kazakova studied acting and film production in Bulgaria. Her film roles won her prestigious awards in Bulgaria and abroad. Together they have directed the feature-length documentaries Zaradi Lelia Sneje (2008), Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service (2014) and The Beast is Still Alive (2016). A Cat on the Wall, their first fiction film, premiered at Locarno.