“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction,” — Mark Twain.
How much can a cat mean to a man? As it turns out, nearly everything, in the case of David Giovanni, a homeless immigrant and “cat daddy” living on the streets of New York City.
His struggle to hold onto his cat Lucky during the COVID-19 pandemic is the heart-wrenching subject of a new film Cat Daddies that explores modern masculinity through the lives of eight unique male cat owners.
The idea arose after director Mye Hoang noticed a softening of her husband after the pair adopted their first cat: a change deep down that was hard to understand. Taking to Instagram, she found a number of men hopelessly devoted to doting on their furry friends, and wanted to find out more; to document the changing conditions of masculinity in society.
But as COVID threw the country into disarray, and Giovanni went from being homeless, to homeless during a pandemic, to homeless in a pandemic with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis, the film took on a more heartfelt direction and focused on the inestimable value of the companionship of the cat in our lives.
Different daddies
An actor/influencer, a truck driver, a school teacher, a firefighter, a software engineer, a police officer—these men lead very different lives and can be found all over the country.
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Yet they’re united in the love for their cats. An experienced directing/producing team captured how each and every cat proved the catalyst for something special and unique in their companions’ lives, from adventure, to comfort, to a feeling of purpose.
“It’s about being ok for men to show their compassionate and vulnerable side and how that should all be part of the definition of strength and leadership,” said Hoang in an interview. “Cats promote caring for others, both animal and man. Now during a pandemic, we know very plainly how pets contribute to our mental health and wellbeing. In the end, this is a film about taking care of each other.”
“This little creature saved my life,” says Giovanni in the film, having gone through unimaginable difficulty alongside a stray cat he adopted, and which also adopted him.
Cat Daddies has picked up five major awards on the independent film circuit, and made its premier in New York on March 30th.
Interested movie-goers can write their cinemas and alert them to Cat Daddies to try and get them to have a screening, or they can watch through an online screening that will raise money for cat shelters.
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The first online screening will premier on April 9th at 7:30PM EST (4:30pm PDT), with all proceeds from the $20 tickets going to Flatbush Cats, a rescue shelter operated by one of the cat dads in the film.
The second will be in Long Beach CA at the Art Theater on April 16th. Proceeds will go to Long Beach’s first and only kitten nursery: Little Lion Foundation. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
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