25 Cats From Qatar
Directed by Mye Hoang
Documentary Feature
United States | 95 min | 2025
Every country in the world grapples with animal welfare, and the feral cat overpopulation crisis is especially grim. Given the universal lack of government resources, the burden falls upon volunteer rescuers to deal with the uphill battle of caring for the ever growing population of cats.
The crisis has reached a breaking point in Doha, capital city of Qatar. The oil-producing nation is one of the world’s wealthiest. However, the luxurious surface and rapid growth are powered by migrant workers who comprise 89% of the population, and end up volunteering their resources to help alleviate the suffering among the nation’s many street cats who struggle to survive the extreme heat, diseases and traffic.
One such volunteer is Umair Khan, a construction manager from Pakistan who secretly harbors 50 cats in a makeshift shelter at his workplace and spends his nights caring for cat colonies all over the city. He and his fellow volunteers keep running up against the same problem: in a transient population, it’s almost impossible to find local adopters for these animals.
7,000 miles away in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, veteran flight attendant and cat cafe operator Katy McHugh becomes aware of the crisis in Doha via social media. Katy hatches an unsanctioned rescue plan with Umair and his fellow volunteers to fly 25 cats back to Wisconsin, where the cat cafe provides a pipeline for easy adoption.
Upon arrival, Katy has just 4 days to meet the Doha rescuers, select the cats from their makeshift shelters, and get the cats cleared for customs. Katy is forced to make difficult and heartbreaking choices to select the final 25 felines, all the while learning more about the culture and history of Qatar, and how the crisis built to this inflection point.
Presenting Qatar as a microcosm of a global crisis, 25 Cats from Qatar asks searching questions about the role of public and private players in animal welfare, all within a ticking-clock narrative about the nuts and bolts of a rescue mission. From the filmmakers behind the award winning CAT DADDIES, the film is both an urgent wake-up call and a heartwarming portrayal of strangers overcoming international barriers to reach a common goal.