Evi Cats lives and works in Brussels. Her films move between fiction and documentary, investigating the ever-changing, kaleidoscopic spaces our bodies inhabit. Her graduation film Walls That Scream, about traces of police violence in Brussels, premiered at IDFA 2022 and was awarded a VAF Wildcard. Her short Waiting for a Sun Storm deals with the layers of time in a shifting city, and won the award for Best Belgian Short at Film Fest Gent. Cats regularly collaborates with choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, for whom she filmed Forêt at the Louvre, which premiered as the opening film at Journées du Film sur l’Art and has since screened at festivals worldwide. Her latest documentary short Another Sky, set within the walls of a social language school, will première next month at IDFA
PROJECT
What's in the Back of the Sea?
On the edge of the Black Sea, in a Romanian port city, Anca works high up in a crane. Between every container she moves, she glances at a woman below, Daria, who guards the gate. She never speaks to her, but tries to sync their rhythms as much as possible in order to be near her. Meanwhile the port is in turmoil: automation is costing jobs, guards are replaced by cameras and admin staff by computers. Workers organize protests, and the risks of the changes are in the air. When Daria isn’t at her post one day, Anca grows uneasy. She secretly sets out to find her, talking to fishermen, dockworkers and protesters. Unexpectedly, her quest for Daria makes her land—for the first time in a long while—in the outside world. When she finds Daria, their love finally starts to bloom. But as fast as Anca is imagining a life together, Daria tells her she's leaving for Western Europe, for a better salary and more stability. Anca stays behind, in a world that keeps shrinking and expanding at the same time.
