The Cat Who Walked by Herself

The Cat Who Walked by Herself
Illustration by Joseph M. Gleeson to The Cat that Walked by Himself
Directed by	Ideya Garanina
Produced by	Ideya Garanina
Written by	Ideya Garanina Mariya Solovyova
Starring	Valentina Ponomaryova Yelena Sanayeva Georgi Burkov Nikolay Karachentsov Inna Churikova Nogon Shumarov Anna Kamenkova Nikolai Burlyayev
Music by	Sofya Gubaydulina
Edited by	Nadezhda Treshchyova
Release date	1988 (1988) (USSR)
Running time	70 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

The Cat Who Walked by Herself (Russian: Кошка, которая гуляла сама по себе; Koshka, kotoraya gulyala sama po sebe) is a 1988 Soviet animated feature film directed by Ideya Garanina and made at the Soyuzmultfilm studio. It is based on Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Cat that Walked by Himself". Like the earlier Soviet animated feature Adventures of Mowgli, the film retains the dark, primal tone of Kipling's work. Includes in itself almost all types animation technologies.

It is not the only Soviet screen version of this fairy tale: in 1968 the director Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya at the same studio released another animated film, "The Cat Who Walked by Himself", lasting only 20 minutes.

The film is largely based on the short story, but goes off on many digressions.

Two parents put their child in his crib for the night and leave the room. The child starts crying, and the Cat comes into the room to keep him company. The child grabs her tail, and the Cat angrily reminds him that they agreed a thousand years ago that he would not do that. Upon seeing that the child doesn't remember, the Cat sighs and decides to tell him the story from the beginning. The story starts when the planet was young and life on Earth is starting with dinosaurs.

The film is available on DVD in the collection Золотая коллекция мультфильмов 9 ("Golden Collection of Cartoons 9"), a PAL 2003 Russian release. It also includes the films Barankin, Be a Man!,Inchgirl,The Pot of Porridge,How the Cat Fought with Mice, and Wings, Legs and Tails (total running time: 142 minutes).

The film has also been released on DVD by the company Krupnyy Plan.