This droll, remarkably controlled comedy chronicles one day in the life of a multigenerational family prepping a celebratory dinner in their cramped Berlin apartment. The first joke to quickly surface is the irony of the title — compared with siblings Karin and Simon, their parents and their little sister Clara (especially Clara), the cat is a paragon of normalcy. As breakfast is eaten, Clara (Mia Kasalo) displays her penchant for screaming, Mom (Jenny Schily) quietly flirts with the neighbour fixing the broken washing machine, doors open and close with the frequency of a bedroom farce and family members scramble hither and thither. Even material objects seem to take on near-magical properties…
Putting the absurdities of daily life on display, Ramon Zurcher’s debut feature assembles these seemingly unspectacular details and snippets into an exciting choreography of the quotidian that will leave audiences grinning at the film’s audacity and perfect execution.
Supported by
Jenny Schily, Anjorka Strechel, Mia Kasalo, Luk Pfaff, Matthias Dittmer
Germany
2013
In German with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Director
Ramon Zürcher
Born in 1982, Swiss screenwriter and director Ramon Zürcher studied visual arts at the Bern Academy of the Arts and film directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. His debut feature, The Strange Little Cat premiered at Berlinale Forum in 2013 and was selected at over 80 festivals. In 2021, his second film, The Girl and the Spider, also premiered at Berlinale where it was awarded Best Director and the FIPRESCI prize in the Encounters section. The Sparrow in the Chimney is his third feature.
Filmography: The Strange Little Cat (2013); The Girl and the Spider (2021)
Photo by Iris Janke
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Yunan
In this haunting mood piece, Munir is a middle-aged Syrian writer in exile in Germany. In crisis, he takes himself up to one of the Halligan islands in the North Sea, a suitable place to end it all...
The Track
In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, three boys train for the Olympics in a bullet-ridden luge track abandoned since the 1984 Winter Games. An ambitious, hopeful look at the next generation striving to overcome the sins of their fathers.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
It Was Just an Accident
Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.
Breaking the Waves
Kicking off our 2026 Pantheon series of the greatest films ever made, Lars von Trier's 1996 masterpiece is a devastating melodrama featuring an indelible performance from Emily Watson as the woman whose love for her husband knows no bounds.