Mom-and-pop independent arthouse theater Cinema Detroit is set to screen a compelling new documentary titled 25 Cats from Qatar on Saturday, May 9. 25 Cats is a suspense-filled rescue story about a Milwaukee flight attendant who flies halfway around the world to save two dozen alley cats from one of the planet’s most dire animal welfare crises.
Directed by Mye Hoang, whose previous documentary, Cat Daddies, was one of the top-grossing docs of 2023, the film unfolds in the country’s capital of Doha.
Qatar is one of the world’s wealthiest nations, but beneath its gleaming skyline lies a street cat population that rivals the country’s entire human population of 2.6 million, a crisis driven largely by a transient workforce of migrant laborers who make up 89 percent of Qatar’s residents.
Katy McHugh, a veteran flight attendant and owner of Milwaukee’s Sip & Purr cat cafe, learns of the crisis through social media and hatches an inspiring, but unsanctioned plan with a network of volunteer rescuers in Doha to airlift 25 cats to Wisconsin, where her cafe provides a pipeline for animal adoption. Before long, McHugh finds herself in a race against time.
on the streets of Dohar. Credit: Courtesy photo
What follows is a four-day sprint — part logistical thriller, part humanitarian odyssey. McHugh teams up with Umair Khan, a Pakistani construction manager who secretly shelters 50 stray cats at his workplace; Lana Malkawi, a Jordanian tech worker who cares for more than 300 disabled cats in a rented mansion dubbed the “cat castle”; and an international cast of expat volunteers from Singapore, the Philippines, India, and Iran, all of them bound by a quiet devotion to animals that official Qatar neither encourages nor acknowledges.
The cats themselves are the heart of the film. Among the 25 are Manu, a one-footed, FIV-positive tabby whose confidence wins everyone over; Marley, a tripod rescued from an animal-cruelty situation; and Penelope, a tiny kitten McHugh smuggles back to her hotel room after finding her fighting for food against adult cats on the streets of Doha.
Hoang, a Texas native based in L.A., frames the rescue mission as a microcosm of a global feral cat overpopulation crisis — one that falls entirely on the shoulders of volunteers when governments look away.
“Being able to document this grand act of love for cats has been a truly rewarding experience,” she says.
The film has screened so far at the 2025 Milwaukee Film Festival, SF DocFest, and the Asian Film Festival of Dallas.
“As a cat rescuer myself, this film really resonates with me,” says Cinema Detroit co-founder Paula Guthat.
“Seeing the cats’ difficult lives is heartbreaking, for sure, but watching people from several different countries work together to help and save them is heartwarming. It’s also thought-provoking and raises questions about humanity’s duty to animals and how we need to care for them and, ultimately, the planet.”
After the movie Saturday, Cinema Detroit will host a live, in-person talkback session with director Hoang and protagonist McHugh.
The event will also benefit local animal rescue All About Animals, which hosts a clinic dedicated to the spaying and neutering of community cats in metro Detroit, and offers a course that teaches residents how to trap, neuter, and release feral cats.
25 Cats from Qatar screens Saturday, May 9 at 3 p.m. at Ant Hall, 2320 Caniff St., Hamtramck. For tickets and more info, visit cinemadetroit.org.
