A Cat in Paris

By day Dino is the cat of a girl called Zoe. Her mother is a police superintendent chasing a gang of thieves in the city. Zoe has not spoken since her father was killed. At night Dino is in another house: he works with Nico, a burglar who moves across the rooftops. The two worlds cross in one night, and following the cat Zoe finds herself among the men her mother is hunting. The most striking thing is the drawing: hand-made, sharply angular, heavily shadowed, with the roofs of Paris used as an almost abstract texture. When the lights go out during the chase the screen turns black and the sequence continues in outline alone. Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol directed. It is short, a little under seventy minutes, and the plot is kept tight accordingly. It was nominated for best animated feature at the 84th Academy Awards, standing out as a small French film among the major studios. Who it is for: anyone who likes hand-drawn animation and the European animation tradition. Who it is not for: anyone watching with small children. There is murder, there are guns and there is a real threat, and because the story finishes so quickly several characters stay on the surface.