When eight-year-old Miša finds an abandoned kitten on the street, he tries to provoke the affection his parents are not giving him.

For a few months I lived in Zurich with my uncle’s family—a family that was falling apart. The apartment I remembered as a warm home felt like a cell, its walls reflecting intolerance and tension. I realised these micro-worlds are often at the heart of the extreme problems Europe faces: violence, alienation, and inter-ethnic hatred. In this film, these themes sit within a broader context whose causes, in my view, lie both in blind traditions, religion and myths, and in a neoliberal system that values people by their economic contribution. CATS continues the work of young authors who depict abandonment, unresolved conflicts, intolerance and violence; its specificity is that, beyond speaking about abandonment in Serbia, it opens an international dialogue about issues that run through many European communities.