Cats of Malta
Directed by Sarah Jayne Portelli
Runtime: 68 minutes
Rated TV-G
Available for streaming October 3, PBS broadcast in 2024

by Joe Carlough, Staff Writer

Cats of Malta is an endearing love letter to the streetsmart stray cats that inhabit the urban streets of Malta and the people who dedicate their time to looking after them. Through a series of interviews with local cat lovers, director Sarah Jane Portelli examines the Culture of Cat that is Malta, and the effect that the stray feline community has had on the people there. Clocking in at just over an hour, Cats of Malta stresses the everyday difficulties for the cats and their caretakers, though it doesn’t quite deliver a cohesive takeaway.

According to the documentary, the island nation of Malta boasts an estimated population of 450,000 people, and 100,000 stray cats–unsurprising, then, what an effect the cats have had on the people there. The film pits the cats and their people against a lack of governmental support, over-building from corporations tied to the tourism industry, and local residents who don’t appreciate the excess of animals in their neighborhoods. But it’s not all doom-and-gloom, as the documentary focuses on those devoting their time, effort, and money to keep the vibrant cat communities purring, from a cheerful ‘tween who feeds cats like it’s his job, to those whose literal job it is to run cat shelters and cafes, and everyone in between.

The highlight of the film for me was the segment on artist Matthew Pandolfino of the Rubberbodies Collective, who has been creating cat statues–some small, some so large he needs a ladder just to paint them–in order to create something of a Patron Saint of stray cats for his beloved home country. I felt this segment truly exemplified what the film set out to do: to establish the cultural significance of cats to the Maltese people.

I feel Cats of Malta would have shined as a series of ten-minute YouTube interviews, but might not have the cohesion to make an impact as a feature-length documentary. Many of the interviews meander through cat names and personalities, personal asides, and philosophies about what we humans can learn from cats, but the interviews are seemingly told unedited and verbatim. One after another, the stories began to blend together, at times leaving me feeling a little exhausted. When my mind strayed, it wasn’t for a lack of love for cats, but more a lack of…conviviality? Maybe even something as simple as fun? While cats are inherently magical and divinely comical beings, this film finds a way to portray them as something much more ordinary. Perhaps more context was needed: the director introduces herself and her own connection to the island in the beginning of the doc, it might have worked better to give everyone such an introduction. It at times felt like the cats were not necessarily important to the nation of Malta, but instead only important to a handful of people.

In all, Cats of Malta is an enjoyable documentary that keeps you rooting for the good people who undertake such a heavy load as caring for colonies of cats who’ve been cast out of their society. There’s lots of cats, some beautiful shots of the island nation, and it’s not a bad way to spend an hour, even if it most likely won’t leave you thinking.