Private Project

Naked Under The Gaze Of A Cat

During the high death rates of Victorian Britain, ghost tales spread like wildfire. As the Space Race gripped the world, sightings of UFOs and aliens multiplied. Now, large, black, panther-like cats have been spotted stalking the British countryside. Exploring a collection of sightings around Glastonbury festival, this film explores why—in a time of ecological collapse—people might be envisioning a wilder vision of English nature.

The documentary takes place in the build up to Glastonbury Festival. The festival is a site in which we seek wildness, activate our animal instincts, and summon a primordial link with the English landscape. As the film progresses, the filmmakers race to collect witness statements and find the cat living on the Glastonbury site. As the date of the festival nears, the cat becomes aware of our search and reverses the filmmakers' gaze.

  • Naomi Pallas
    Director
  • Naomi Pallas
    Producer
  • Sebastien Rabas
    Producer
  • Helena Gonzalez
    Director of Photography
  • Frederik Ribergaard
    Editor
  • Maxwell Sterling
    Composer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 45 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 4K
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Naomi Pallas

NAOMI PALLAS produced her last feature-length documentary with the BAFTA-award winning Windfall Films, and is currently producing a 90 minute investigation into the processed food industry for BBC One. After doing an MA in the ethics of documentary, she trained as a journalist at the BBC, directing her first documentary for BBC Three in 2021.

Alongside her TV work, she directs creative nonfiction films that explore the environment, folklore and British nationhood. She’s particularly interested in how humans interact with nature, and exploring the political, social and cultural ramifications of conflicting environmental narratives.

These interests are also expressed in the programming series she founded, We Are Doc Women Presents, which foregrounds female-directed documentaries. As well as selecting the films, she hosts the panel discussions and Q&As.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The motivation for this project emerged from my longstanding interest in the relationship between British identity, the environment and folklore.

Reading George Monbiot’s FERAL, I was struck by how the concept of panthers living in Britain fed into myths about a wild England. Monbiot discusses farmers, vets, and ecologists who claim to spot large black cats stalking the landscape, despite scant evidence of their existence.

To me it read like a British ghost story, through which we collectively conjure a Britain before factories, agriculture, and even human intervention. This isn’t dissimilar to the experience of Glastonbury and I wanted to weave those two elements together: the topsy turvy nature of Glastonbury festival complimenting a return to a ‘wild’ Britain.

When I decided to slowly start adopting the gaze of the cat, I realised this was a way for the audience to inhabit a wilder point of view, to inhabit a more animalistic way of seeing that we usually cannot in ordinary life.