The resilience of the human spirit is celebrated in this bittersweet portrait of Jimmy Mirikitani, a street artist who uses his art to display the joyful and traumatic images drawn from his incredible life.

Jimmy Mirikitani is an amazing man. He was discovered by filmmaker Linda Hattendorf in his eighties on the streets of SoHo in New York City. As she got to know Jimmy, he gradually let her in on his life story from his birth in California to his move to Hiroshima as a young boy, where he witnessed the dropping of the atom bomb. Jimmy manages to cope with this and other disturbing chapters of his life by representing them through his bold, colorful drawings that make passers-by take notice. Even those not interested in his more socially conscious works can't pass up his whimsical drawings of the felines he adores. Mirikitani is suddenly forced to rely on the kindness of the director when his world is again destroyed, this time by the events of 9/11. Trying to find a stable living situation for the old man, Hattendorf takes it upon herself to reexamine Jimmy's life and find his surviving loved ones. Cats has been an audience favorite at every festival that it has screened, and we're sure it will be a favorite in Philadelphia too.