These Wild Cats

In a DIY cabin deep in the forest, Martin builds a solitary yet ordered life among his cats. When one disappears, routines falter and memories resurface. Through fragments of daily life and quiet confessions, the film reflects on mourning, freedom and the fragile edges of marginal existence.

Steve Patry: ‘It all began with an extremely cinematic image: far from everything, in the middle of the forest, a man carving out a new life alongside his pack of cats.

Wherever civilisation exists, there have always been people eager to break away from it. Are we meant to live alone? Can isolation be harmful, or can it allow us to experience the world more truthfully? These were the questions that guided me as I began filming.

Working through an almost fully embedded approach, I shared my protagonist’s living space across 18 filming trips, becoming an observer-participant in an existence at once fabulous, tragic and marked by marginality.’