That’s just a word I made up. I was given two tickets by my friend Carolyn, to “25 Cats From Qatar,” a film about cat rescue operations in Qatar. Carolyn couldn’t make the show so I asked the former “mini-me” aka my youngest granddaughter, to join me.

The film is part of the Wisconsin Film Festival which started in 1999 and highlights cinema from around the world. These are not your Hollywood-type movies, but the work of filmmakers from Wisconsin and different parts of the world.

“25 Cats from Qatar” is about an American cat rescue group based in Wisconsin. The camera follows a woman from Milwaukee to the capital of Qatar, the city of Doha, to choose 25 cats to bring back for adoption. You find out that 25 cats isn’t even a percentage point of the number of feral and abandoned cats in the city.

Most of these cats are abandoned by Qatar’s temporary workers who leave after their contracts are done. Rather than take the cats back with them, they abandon their cats on the streets. “It’s just a cat.” I learned that there is a rotating population of 3 million temporary workers and an estimated 3 million cats abandoned on the streets.

There are people who have been feeding and providing some care for cats in their neighborhoods and these are the lucky cats. Most have to scrounge for food and risk starvation or being killed by traffic or disease.

The film showed several people who take a few cats off the street, primarily to treat wounds and injuries, and offer them a place to recover before turning them loose again. The healthiest of the cats are held for foreign rescuers to pick up and take to their home countries for adoptions. Very few of these make the cut.

There are veterinarians who will verify that the cats are healthy enough for travel and who fill out the cats’ health certificates and their passports. Yep, today I learned that cats get passports. One of the cats turned out to be pregnant so she smuggled 4 kittens in in her belly.

The young woman actually brought 27 cats (+4) back to Milwaukee. All 31 found homes. I think the entire cargo area of the plane was wall-to-wall cat crates. At the end of the film, there was a question and answer period featuring rescuer and the woman who accompanied her to do the filming.

AJ and I didn’t stick around for that, because my bad knee was really giving me trouble. Apparently, the balcony of the 100 year-old theater was built for shorter people with good knees. I spent the entire film standing which was okay because we were in the very last row and I was able to brace myself quite well against the seat.

As we walked out, I took a tumble – very embarrassing, by the way. I made it down the steps okay. And as we were leaving the forecasted rain was pouring down. Being part cat myself, I really didn’t appreciate the wet, and sent AJ to get her car which she didn’t appreciate because she’s also part cat. 😀