The Cats of Gokogu Shrine

This rich observational documentary opens with a bratty orange tabby grabbing director Kazuhiro Soda’s microphone and attempting to eat it. That funny scene serves as a reminder that cats are internet stars because of their playful antics. But while irresistible images abound throughout this film, this is a work of more serious intent, as Soda tenderly observes his seaside hometown, Ushimado, as the community contends with an aging population, erasure in the face of modernity and shifting industrial investment, and the pandemic. Employing his typical tenets of verité filmmaking, Soda allows the subjects to guide his camera while he captures the day-to-day machinations of daily life and the unusually fraught deliberations over what to do about its feral feline population residing in Ushimado. A shrine without felines—who have been largely abandoned there—seems unlikely, and the film makes a poignant case for their contributions to village life as charming, fluffy providers of purring hospitality.