Award-Winning Actress and Activist Mary Apick’ Powerful Film ‘The Cat’ Is More Significant than Ever
For the last four decades Mary Apick, an award-winning filmmaker, actress, and activist has been an icon in the Iranian ex-pat community. Her humanitarian efforts are to support the voiceless women and children in Iran fighting the darkness of Islamic depression.
Over the many years supporting the women and children in Iran, Mary has been interviewed by CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Reuters, and public radio, and she has shared her concerns with the U.S. Congress on the subject of the underrepresented in Iran.
Now, with the recent uprisings in Iran, her movie ‘The Cat‘, which was in consideration for an Academy Award last year and has so far garnered more than twenty-five Best Animation Awards from various international film festivals including Toronto International Women Film Festival, the British Animation Film Festival, Berlin International Festival, Amsterdam Short Film Festival, Los Angeles Shorts International Film Festival, Sacramento Film Festival, LA Independent Women Film Awards, Art Film Spirit Awards, Indie Shorts Awards Cannes, and St. Louis International Film Festival is exactly what her film so powerfully demonstrates.
‘The Cat‘, a 12-minute hand-drawn animated short film, is a story about life, especially for women, in Iran since the 1979 revolution. The film follows a happy little girl selling flowers on the street… until the idyllic world she knows is enveloped by an oozing, malevolent darkness that destroys everything in its path. She is forced to run for her life as the darkness consumes anything that it can’t control – art, education, religion, society, and even the people themselves. The darkness and oppression are so relentless that the exhausted girl gives up. But she can’t go through with it. She must continue fighting … whatever the cost. Her strength and determination bring light back to her life and repel the darkness. She is free once again. And the world is beautiful once again. The Cat is also in-line with the Me-Too movement on its message for Women globally.
Mary Apick was forced to flee Iran during the revolution. In 1977 she won the Best Actress Award at the Moscow Film Festival, and her own play, ‘Beneath the Veil, ‘ which she wrote and directed, won the Critics’ Choice Award in Los Angeles. The play deals with the plight of women and children in Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. It has been presented in association with several human rights groups, for performances at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Lincoln Center in New York City, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, and elsewhere. Honored guests and attendees have included Laura Bush (Former First Lady of the United States), Queen Farah Pahlavi (Former Queen of Iran), and Academy Award-winner Meryl Streep.
Watch ‘The Cat’: https://vimeo.com/653885052
