Amsterdam director Jamille van Wijngaarden makes the move from live-action to animation with “Catastrophe,” her perfectly paced and carefully blocked twist on Sylvester and Tweetie – a two-minute ode to innocent characters making things worse.

Jamille van Wijngaarden (from the Vimeo interview): “I’m often inspired by tragic characters who mean well but whose actions have disastrous consequences.

“My cat is one of those characters, knocking things over as he comes by for a cuddle. He was the starting point for ‘Catastrophe.’

“Usually cats are the stereotypical bad guy in cat-bird stories; I wanted to play with that concept and make little birdie the devious character.”
 

Writer/director: Jamille van Wijngaarden
Producer: Keplerfilm
Animation: Storm Postproduction
Sound design: Randall Macdonald / Wave Studios Amsterdam
Music: Hans Nieuwenhuijsen