Romeo-Juliet

Synopsis: Film version of Romeo and Juliet casting the feral cats of Venice, New York and Ghent as actors with voices dubbed by established actors of the British theatre. Filmed as a concert, with music from Prokofiev and Emanuel Vardi performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth and Andre Previn. The story centres around a bag lady (John Hurt) who takes the cats of Venice and puts them on a boat to set sail for the New World.
Language: English
Country: Belgium
Medium: Film
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Year of release: 1990
Duration: 130 mins

Director

Armando Acosta

Producer

Andree Castagne; Armando Acosta; Lanny Mickelson; Paul Celis

Cinematographer

Armando Acosta

Screenplay

Armando Acosta; Koen Van Brabant; Victor Spinetti

Music

Armando Acosta; Emanuel Vardi; Sergei Prokofiev

Art Direction

Magda Gooris

Cast

Robert Powell	Voice of Romeo (Romeo)
Francesca Annis	Voice of Juliet (Juliet)
John Hurt	Voice of Mercutio (Mercutio)
Ben Kingsley	Voice of Father Capulet (Capulet)
John Haggart	Voice of Prince (Escalus, Prince of Verona)
John Hurt	La Dame Aux Chats
Maggie Smith	Voice of Rosaline
Quentin Crisp	Voice of Balthasar (Balthasar)
Vanessa Redgrave	Voice of Mother Capulet (Lady Capulet)
Victor Spinetti	Voice of Tybalt (Tybalt)
Victor Spinetti	Voice of Benvolio (Benvolio)

Notes: Shot on standard definition PAL. Different sources cite the running time as between 120 and 140 minutes. The film is described as having over 200 hours of footage of the feline cast which was assembled into the final edit.

Quentin Crisp in his diaries Resident Alien: The New York Diaries (1997) edited by Donald Carroll makes mention of the filming.
General: The film is dedicated to Stan Laurel.
History: Screened at the 1990 Venice Film Festival. The world premiere of the film (shortened from the Venice screening) took place June 20 1992 at the Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels. Distributed theatrically by Loeb & Loeb the film was not released for the home market and is notoriously difficult to acquire. Clips from the film are included in the video A&E’S INCREDIBLE WORLD OF CATS sold on amazon.com
Reviews: "They’re not really trained cats, they don’t wear little costumes, it looks like they’re regular cats that they coaxed to move across the sets etc. Then through slow motion effects and editing, they create an illusion of interaction that accompanies the narration" . IMDb user comment (accessed 8/2007).

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British Universities Film & Video Council