Cat (Jodie Hirst) is a shy photography student at a Brighton college who has a crush on a fellow student named April (Faye Sewell) who finds out that cat has been taking photos of her. However, instead of being upset, April is actually curious and Cat overcomes her shyness asking April out. What follows is the beginning of an authentic romance and a coming of age story between two girls who can't quite be openly happy together in a world that will not let them be.

CAT SKIN plays like a tenderer version of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, its sex scenes lean more towards love-making and the sexual discovery of the two female leads. This is a romance film, but one we know will have its dark, tragic undertones. We live in a world that for all the advances we have made, each day appears as if we made a leap back when it comes to LGBTQ rights. The film doesn't really go into social justice areas, but it's simply concerned with the purity of love, love that finds any vessel and that cannot be resisted. These stories may not appear to be new, but they are none the less necessary, the love story between Cat and April deserves to be told for there's not many of them out there.

Director Daniel Grasskamp tells a modern love story with confidence and thoughtfulness, but also knows how to inject moments of searing pain that break the spell. Hirst and Sewell are terrific together and their chemistry lights up the screen, you root for them to stay together, and fear for them when you know the world won't make it easy for them. Overall, a love story for our times told without the illusions of other films that wrap everything in a bow-tie with easy answers. Love does conquer it all, but all conquests take a toll for all.

Review Written by Enrrico Wood Lagonigro - Senior Curator Oaxaca FilmFest.

There's apparently a thriving genre of films about young women discovering their sexuality and facing the perils of young love and social and familial ostracism. "Cat Skin" follows a familiar plot, about an ostensibly heterosexual girl falling for a shy lesbian, but the specifics and the style make the film stand out.

The film is short on dialogue, which is fitting as Cat, the shy photography student you see on the poster, doesn't speak much, except to her pet cat and her hospitalized mother. Jodie Hirst is mesmerizing in the role, conveying the character's thoughts and feelings with expressions and silences; you can see the words she wants to say, and the torment of not being able to say them.

When the characters do speak, the results are not as strong: when April, the object of Cat's affection, is confronted by her parents for her friendship with this weird, mysterious girl, the lines are stilted and trite. The parents themselves are two-dimensional. Thankfully their role in the film is brief, and outweighed by the two dynamic leads.

The director squeezes almost unbearable tension out of almost static scenes: the two girls sitting beside each other in a cinema, neither daring to move, or April masturbating in her bedroom after a heated argument with her mother. When Cat and April finally spend the night together the scene is more suspenseful than graphic, since any sound could alert April's parents and cause trouble for both of them. But there's an overall gentleness and sensitivity to the story that is deeply touching, without ever getting sentimental or melodramatic.

The bittersweet ending leaves the audience with unanswered questions, but also a sense of hope. Cat and April still face a lifetime of struggle, but at least they understand themselves and each other better, and their story makes the audience feel a little closer to the rest of the world. That connection between personal and universal stories makes "Cat Skin" a rare film.