the audience applauded

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Beginning with footage of a homeless old man on the streets of New York City, the film expands into the extraordinary story of Japanese-American artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani. He was born in California, educated in Japan, and returned to America only to be put in U.S. interment camps during World War II. The photography is striking -- exceptional really. This wonderful, beautiful old man tells his story mainly through his art, but also with words of candor. "Discovered" by critics late in his life, Mr. Mirikitani finally earns deserved acclaim for his work AND finds family members unknown or thought lost. The extra footage showing his return to Hiroshima is especially moving. The film by Linda Hattendorf depicts a man who has spent nearly his entire life chronicling a critical, albeit invidious, piece of American history through art. This compelling documentary garnered many awards, but not nearly enough!

New York documentary filmmaker Linda Hattendorf should be proud of what she did in filming Asian-American artist Jimmy Mirikitani, his paintings, and his telling the stories of his life of living in an internment camp during World War II. This Sacramento-born, Hiroshima-raised artist is frank and occasionally profane in his feelings of what the American government had done to him especially when he had to sign his U. S. citizenship away, which explains why he initially refuses Social Security. Taking place before and after 9/11, Mirikitani experiences some deja vu when he watches television reports of Arab-Americans being treated like second-class citizens. But with Linda's help, he also talks on the phone with his sister who he lost contact with during the war and discovers a poet daughter of a cousin named Janice, who lives in San Francisco. He also gets his own apartment and starts teaching an art class. The most touching scenes come at the end when he and Linda travel back to where he was interned at Tule Lake. Essential viewing for anyone wanting to know how narrow-minded the American government was during World War II and how far we've come since then. Oh, and the title refers to the many cats he paints.

I have seen this movie during the Rotterdam Film festival. The film is a sort of interview like movie/documentary about a Japanese artist (Mr Mirikitani) that was send to an American concentration camp for Japanese immigrants after the pearl harbor attack WWII.After this period he is in the USA but loses his identity/social number etc. He manages to do some work here and there as a cook but eventually goes to living in the streets of new york where he makes drawings/paintings mostly cats (but actually he draws anything). a female reporter (Linda Hattendorf) makes a documentary of his life and then the terrorist attacks (9-11) take place at the world trade center.As ashes and toxic fumes on ground zero emerge, Mr Mirikitani has no place to stay and the female reporter decides to take him into her apartment which creates a lot of hilarious moments ... it is a film with a lot of grief, happiness and humor. that's why i would recommend it to anyone that likes an emotional story with a lot of humor. Probably I fail to make a lot of details in this review and maybe have some facts in wrong perspective but just go see the movie for yourself and give your meaning here too!

When film maker Linda Hattendorf stumbles upon Japanese-American artist Jimmy Mirikitani on the streets of Soho, he is huddled for warmth under the awning of a Deli, drawing charming, stylized, joyful pictures of cats. They get acquainted, and she starts filming. The morning of 9-11 she rescues him from the horror and chaos of the streets, and he comes to live with her. They make the "Odd Couple" look tame, and she continues to unravel the stories of his life from his birth in Sacramento 80 years before, to his growing up in Hiroshima, to his return to the U.S. just before WWII---and just in time to be carted off to one of the "internment camps" for Japanese Americans. The film follows Jimmy as he reveals more and more of his past, and follows Hattendorf as she helps him put together a life off the streets, and eventually to a reunion of internees at the Tule Lake Camp in California. This is a loving portrait, exquisitely filmed and told in a way that unfolds without pretense. Even when Jimmy draws parallels between his family's tragedy at Hiroshima and the tragedy of American stereotyping and anti-Arab sentiment after 9-11, the film is not heavy-handed or "preachy." It is simply lovely and poignant.Hattendorf set out to film this interesting character (and wonderful artist---he calls himself a "grand master," and not without reason) and ended up giving him a new existence and helping him tie up many of the "loose ends" of his life---and letting us get to know both of them intimately and without judgment.This is the simple art of film making and story telling at its best.