Be My Cat: A Film for Anne

An aspiring Romanian filmmaker and actor obsessed with Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway tries to convince her to come to Romania and star alongside him in his upcoming film. He goes to shocking extremes using three local actresses to shoot demo scenes to send to Anne as proof of his filmmaking and acting skills.

Adrian explains that the film he is making is not, in reality, Be My Cat. Be My Cat is a film he has written so Anne Hathaway can play the leading role. He states that his interest in Anne and making this film came from her portrayal of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, citing a love for cats.

The first actress that he uses as an example of his directorial style is a girl named Sonia, whose parents drop her off with Adrian at an abandoned house down the street from where he stays with his mother. Adrian begins shooting a scene with Sonia that doubles as a frustrating acting exercise. It becomes clear that Be My Cat is about a stalker obsessed with an actress, and the lines start to blur between Adrian as director and Adrian as the character. Increasingly frustrated and frightened, Sonia calls the police. After talking with her, Adrian explains to the police that it was a misunderstanding and convinces Sonia to shoot another scene at night. In the night scene the stalker uses chloroform to abduct the actress. In the second take, Adrian uses real chloroform and knocks Sonia out.

After taking her to his bedroom Adrian procures a cat suit. Before undressing her and putting the cat suit on her, Adrian explains to the camera (now personified as "Anne") that he would never do this in real life, and that it is only him in character. He also states that he is worthy of Anne in every way, betraying that his intentions for Anne may be more than artistic. Adrian stays the night beside the knocked out Sonia. When she wakes up frightened he insists that she must be sacrificed for her art. He chokes Sonia to death and hides her body in the basement.

While going to meet the second actress Adrian explains that he was bullied in the past, and due to this he dislikes boys and dogs for their meanness and likes girls and cats due to their sweetness and innocence. He also explains that the character in his film seeks to turn the actress character into a surrogate of his cat that he accidentally killed, and that this is based on how he accidentally killed his cat as a child. He ironically chances upon a dead cat on the side of the road.

Upon meeting the second actress Flori, Adrian is disappointed, as she had sent him pictures of herself when she was younger. Displeased with her age and weight, Adrian berates her. Flori offers him sexual favors in exchange to let her be in the movie, which disgusts Adrian. He tells Anne that he will not accept.

In the next scene Adrian has apparently allowed Flori to stay as they pick up the third actress, a young girl name Alexandra. Adrian asks Alexandra to wait upstairs and he performs surgery on Flori with a kitchen knife in the basement. Two neighbors come and investigate when they hear Flori's screams but Adrian assures them that they are filming a horror movie. Later that night, Adrian returns with a cat suit, having surgically thinned Flori, intending for her to wear it and be transformed. He is surprised to find her dead from blood loss. He acknowledges and enjoys that he has completely disappeared into his character and therefore can send Alexandra home, already having proved his abilities to Anne.

While Adrian is retrieving trash bags, Alexandra comes downstairs and finds Flori's body. Adrian finds himself faced with a dilemma, not wanting to kill Alexandra but knowing she will turn him in. She tries to talk him out of killing her and briefly tries to escape. Realizing she cannot escape, she continues to reason with Adrian. Adrian finds himself somewhat attracted to Alexandra due to her resemblance to Anne Hathaway, but tells Anne not to be jealous and that he only loves her. Alexandra uses this and tells him that he needs to go to Anne. Adrian says he cannot due to his fear of leaving his hometown. Alexandra says that to win her he must face his fear and go to her. She excites Adrian with the ideas of marrying and having children with Anne Hathaway. He decides that she is right and agrees to let her live, on the condition that she will wait in the basement and give him thirty minutes to escape and leave for Hollywood. Alexandra wishes him luck as he decides that he does not need to make a movie after all, since the movie was just a means to be with Anne. Overjoyed, he turns off the camera, leaving his and Alexandra's fates ambiguous.

• Adrian Țofei as Adrian
• Sonia Teodoriu as Sonya
• Florentina Hariton as Flory
• Alexandra Stroe as Alexandra

Adrian Țofei, who came from a background in method acting and theatre, partially improvised the movie in his hometown in Romania on a $10,000 budget as director, producer, writer, lead actor, editor, cinematographer and most other jobs usually performed by a film crew, he never used a camera before in his life, had no crew present during shootings other than him and the actresses, partially lived in character, met the actresses for the first time in character with the camera on, and kept only first takes in the final cut.[10][18][19]

Adrian Țofei's filmmaking method consists of working for months on an alternative psychological reality for the actors including himself, partially living in character, so that when they start improvising, he mainly needs to record the unfolding events and to make sure the improvisation goes in the right direction. There is no script, only plot points. Adrian shoots tens of hours of footage guerrilla style (25 hours for Be My Cat: A Film for Anne), and then he watches the footage like a documentary filmmaker would and creates the details of the story in post-production during the editing process.[10][19]

• Official website
• Be My Cat: A Film for Anne at IMDb
• Be My Cat: A Film for Anne on Letterboxd
• Be My Cat: A Film for Anne at Rotten Tomatoes