About a week ago, my blogging friend toutparmoi (who writes the blog called “The Earl of Southampton’s Cat,” which I highly recommend)  mentioned a film about the cats of Istanbul called “Kedi,” which is the word for cat in Turkish. She said it was an amazing documentary that she thought I would like, given my love for both cats and Istanbul.

She was right!

I ordered the DVD and watched it last night. Oh, it made me so homesick for Istanbul and the many cats we used to feed there in our courtyard.

The movie is available on You Tube Red and can also be ordered as a DVD from its website or on Amazon. Simply Google “Kedi,” which has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is that good!

 

 

Documentary on Istanbul’s cats

Watching “Kedi” brought back memories of 2006, when I lived with Sevket Basdelen in the Kocamustafapasa district of Istanbul, within the ancient Byzantine city walls. We had the luxury of a courtyard and after a few days, several cats came to investigate us, their new neighbors.

I then went on a search for cat food and finally found some, although it was rather expensive. In the film, many of the cat lovers cook chicken, pounds and pounds of it, every day to feed their neighborhood street cats, but I stuck to kibble.

Here are some pictures of our courtyard kitties, featuring Miss Pwiss, the white mother cat with a lopped-off tail and her two kittens Sassy and Scotch, and then some of the numerous other cats we fed every day.

 

 

Miss Pwiss and her kittens graduated to inside/outside status. Sassy enjoyed watching TV on the couch with Sevket. 🙂

If you like cats, or are intrigued by the gorgeous city of Istanbul, you will definitely want to check out the documentary movie “Kedi.”

A big “Thank You” to toutparmoi for turning me onto this film! ❤