The Cassandra Cat

The Cassandra Cat, also released under the titles When the Cat Comes, The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses, One Day a Cat and/or That Cat, is a 1963 Czechoslovak film directed by Vojtěch Jasný. The film won two major awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, including the C.S.T. Prize and Special Jury Prize, Cannes. After a digital restoration, the film was shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and digital versions of were released in cinemas throughout the Czech Republic. Plot Robert is a school teacher in an undisclosed Bohemian village. He is under stress from Charlie, the foreboding town mayor who controls the happenings in town, and from his unfaithful and uncaring lover. Robert is forced to teach his students a ‘black and white’ view on life and a realist view on art, stifling imagination. For an ‘artistic’ painting class, Oliva, a castellan (and storyteller) is invited as the subject. Instead of posing as a model, Oliva recounts a story of a cat with sunglasses – whose eyes revealed the true nature of the human condition through colour. Red, importantly, was the colour of ‘lovers’ – well-meaning people, whilst colours like yellow and purple were reserved for the unfaithful, envious and unruly. The ‘normal’ people eventually killed the cat, for they didn't want others to know who was good or bad.