Be My Cat: A Film for Anne Review from TetroVideo!
Be My Cat: A Film for Anne opens with a message reading: “The film has been edited from the 25 hours of footage found at the Be My Cat crime scene in Rădăuți, Romania, on May 20, 2014.” Following this we are introduced to a mild-mannered man recording a message in front of the camera, “Hello Anne. Um, my name is Adrian. I am from Romania and I want to make a movie with you.” He continues by picking up the camera to give the viewer (Anne) a tour of his mother’s home. He Introduces his mother, as well as childhood photos, whilst he laughs nervously. He makes his way around the house and to his room (a rummage filled attic) gleefully expressing with a childlike innocence, “My movie is called Be My Cat, and I love cats, and I wrote a script, and first I needed a great great actress to play the leading role.” He continues to explain that for years he could not find that actress but finally after seeing Anne Hathaway play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, she became his choice.
The found footage film continues and Adrian explains to Anne that he cast three additional actresses in the film but misled them into thinking this would be a Hollywood film, rather than what it is — a personal documentation for himself to convince Anne to work with him. “This will be our secret, okay?” he says to Anne, looking into the camera.
Adrian goes down the street from his mother’s house where he is renting a room to film in. There he meets up with his first actress, Sonia (Sonia Teodoriu) and begins the shoot with her, which quickly turns bizarre. The two argue about the scene, resulting in a frustrated Sonia calling the police. When the Romanian authorities arrive, he explains to them it was all a big misunderstanding. He then manages to convince Sonia to shoot another scene at night with him involving an abduction scene with fake chloroform. Little does Sonia know, that in fact, Adrian is method acting and uses actual chloroform to knock her out.
Awaking the next morning from her chloroformed stupor, she is bound with rope. Adrian produces a cat suit, for his actress explaining to Anne that he is merely becoming the character and wouldn’t actually do this in real life. Taking method acting to a whole new level, he strangles the life out of Sonia, and dumps her like trash in the basement, thus Adrian entering actual depraved snuff territory.
Be My Cat: A Film for Anne is expertly acted. Adrian and the three actresses pull off amazing performances, that are so genuine, this found footage film seems very real. Actress Florentina Hariton even uncannily resembles Anne Hathaway, in a perfect casting choice. The film gives off major Man Bites Dog vibes, due to such authenticity from the actors. This is horror’s answer to the Dogma 95 filmmaking ideals.
Director, writer, producer, editor, cinematographer, and actor, Adrian Tofei, comes from a theatrical/method acting background. He shot Be My Cat: A Film for Anne with the modest budget of $10,000 with 25-hours of footage edited down to this tightly knit package of 87-minutes. Apparently, there was an initial 109-minute release of the film for its world premiere at the Fantasporto International Film Festival in Portugal, which I have not seen. However, this version had great flow and never felt as if it were cut short, but rather made tighter.
Fans of visceral found footage cinema like the aforementioned Man Bites Dog owe it to themselves to check out Be My Cat: A Film for Anne which is now available from our friends at TetroVideo with a DVD release limited to 100 copies.
AKA: Будь моей киской: Фильм для Энн
Directed by: Adrian Tofei | Written by: Adrian Tofei | Produced by: Adrian Tofei | Cinematography by: | Editing by: Adrian Tofei | Music by: Cristian Paturca | Special Effects by: Adrian Tofei | Cast: Adrian Tofei, Sonia Teodoriu, Florentina Hariton, Alexandra Stroe | Year: 2015 | Country: Romania | Language: English | Colour: Colour | Runtime: 1h 27min
Studio: Adrian Tofei
Distributor: TetroVideo
Be My Cat: A Film For Anne
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