Directed by Joann Sfar & Antoine Delesvaux • Animation • With Mathieu Amalric, Hafsia Herzi, François Damiens, Eric Elmosnino • 2011 • 80 minutes
Based on the best-selling graphic novel by Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat tells the story of a rabbi and his talking cat – a sharp-tongued feline philosopher brimming with scathing humor and a less than pure love for the rabbi’s voluptuous teenage daughter.
Algeria in the 1930s is an intersection of Jewish, Arab and French culture. A cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and miraculously gains the ability to speak. Along with the power of speech comes unparalleled sardonic wit, and the cat – and filmmaker Sfar – spare no group or individual as they skewer faith, tradition and authority in a provocative exploration of (among other things) God, lust, death, phrenology, religious intolerance, interspecies love, and the search for truth. Rich with the colors, textures, flavors and music of Mediterranean Africa, the film embarks on a cross continent adventure from the tiled terraces, fountains, quays and cafes of colonial Algiers to Maghrebi tent camps, dusty trading outposts, and deep blue Saharan nights in search of a lost Ethiopian city.
—César Awards 2012 Winner, Best Animated Film
Up Next in Animation (Features)
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Benny's Bathtub
Directed by Jannik Hastrup, Flemming Quist Møller • Animation • With Bo Jakobsen • 1971 • 41 minutes
A psychedelic Danish animated kids' film in which a young boy, bored with the dreary Adult World, follows an enchanted tadpole into his bathtub where he discovers a surreal and musical undersea w...
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Cat City
Directed by Béla Ternovszky • Animation • 1986 • 97 minutes
Unflappable and unstoppable mouse secret agent Nick Grabovsky (László Sinkó) with his deadpan voice, baggy pants and a big "G" on his shirt, goes up against the criminal cat gang run by the sinister, metal-pawed Mr. Teufel (Miklós Bened...
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Bubble Bath
Directed by György Kovásznai • Animation • With Vera Venzcel, Kornél Gelley • 1979 • 80 minutes
A truly unique and surreal animated musical comedy from Hungary by György Kovásznai about a high-strung window decorator about to be married who bursts into the apartment of his fiancée's best friend ...
