The Cast of Cats

The Team

Ceyda Torun
Director/Producer

Born in Istanbul, Ceyda spent her formidable early years among the street cats while her mother worried she’d get rabies and her sister worried she’d bring home fleas. After her family left the country when she was eleven, Ceyda lived in Amman, Jordan, and ended up in New York for her high school years, never encountering a street cat. Ceyda studied Anthropology at Boston University, returned to Istanbul to assist director Reha Erdem and then off to London to work alongside producer Chris Auty. She returned to the US and co-founded Termite Films with cinematographer Charlie Wuppermann and has since directed her first feature documentary. She still misses her feline companions, gets excited whenever she sees a cat on the streets of Los Angeles, but they rarely feel the same way about her. 

Mo Stoebe
Editor

Austrian-born M(e)o(w) Stoebe is a an editor, animator and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He started his career in motion graphics and editing in commercial post-production where he contributed to title sequences for films such as Ridley Scotts ‘Black Hawk Down’ as well as edited over 100 photofilms with six-time World Press Award winning photojournalist Gideon Mendel for UNICEF, UNAIDS and Actionaid. Mo’s feature documentary editing credits include the award winning ‘Out in India’, ‘State of Control’, ‘One Minute To Burn’ and ‘Kedi’; he holds an MA in Communication Design from the Royal College of Art in London.

John Keith Wasson
Co-Producer

John Keith (JK) Wasson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who helped develop and co-produced 'Kedi'. His directorial debut, 'Surviving Hitler: A Love Story', premiered on the BBC and Netflix, won awards at Full Frame Film Festival, Ojai Film Festival, and the Kroll Fund. He directed the documentary  'Tricked' (Netflix). He also worked as cinematographer on the Sundance festival darling 'The Devil Came On Horseback', a documentary about the genocide in Darfur.

Charlie Wuppermann
Cinematographer/Producer

Charlie never imagined that he would one day be lying on the streets of Istanbul getting on eye level with cats, human shoes and car tires in order to shoot a documentary. But after founding Termite Films with his producing partner Ceyda Torun, it became clear that a film had to be made about the Cats of Istanbul. Before this adventure, Charlie graduated from the London Film School with an MA in cinematography, after which he began shooting music videos, commercials, and documentaries in his native Germany and all over Europe. In 2009 he moved to Los Angeles permanently and has since shot the narrative feature films ‘Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain’, ‘Blood Moon’ and ‘A Country Called Home’. He loved every minute of shooting ‘Kedi’ and can’t wait to go back to Istanbul.

Kira Fontana
Composer

Always a great admirer of the independent spirit of felines, Kira fell in love with the idea behind KEDI. Intrigued to learn of the millions of street cats in Istanbul and the special bonds they create with humans, Kira was delighted when director Ceyda Torun approached her to write the music that would help bring these magical stories to life. Kira strove to create an ethereal sound world that reflects the role cats play as both mirrors to the main human characters, and as observers of the city's ever changing nature. Kira earned her BM in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, and her MM from the Yale School of Music. Her main composition mentors were Steve Reich, John Adams and David Lang. She now lives in Los Angeles, where she is an active composer and songwriter.

Official Movie Poster