Michael Ward on Friday, May 18

★★★1/2

Originally made for CBC television in Canada, Catwalk… is a riotous documentary about the world of Canadian cat show competitions.

Directors Aaron Hancox and Michael McNamara open viewers up to a fascinating world of low-cost cat shows, where cats are judged and evaluated and receive scores along a multi-month season of events and exhibitions. What emerges is a subculture I knew very little about and grew to fall in love with almost instantly.

The film builds to essentially a two-feline race between a Turkish Angora named Bobby (the defending champion) and the emergence of a fluffy red Persian named Ooh La La (because, of course it is…).

We meet the owners, travel the circuit, get to know the husband-and-wife judging tandem, and see a sense of community created that warms the heart, even when Bobby’s owner seems ready to explode in emotional outbursts every time Ooh La La performs well at a competition and threatens her reign as best in show.