Grand prize winner at the 1st Internet Cat Video Festival

This past Thursday in Minneapolis, the Walker Art Center hosted the first ever Internet Cat Video Film Festival.

The crowd — easily double what organizers expected — packed the lawn outside the museum, spilling onto the sidewalks across the street ... They all settled in for a screening of cats behaving badly, or cutely, or mysteriously, sometimes all at once. That much of the audience had already seen the clips on YouTube did not seem to diminish the enthusiasm. Quite the contrary.

“People watch them, and they watch them over and over and over again,” said Gretchen Sealls, 65, a retired banker who drove five hours from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I think you’re going to see a lot of copycat versions of this,” she added. “No pun intended.” ...

It is an axiom of Internet life that the cat video is king ...

The Golden Kitty award, chosen by visitors to the Walker’s Web site, went to Will Braden for his two-minute opus “Henri 2: Paw de Deux,” about the existential angst of a black-and-white French puss. Henri actually has an online store that sells $1,000 a week in mugs and other merchandise.

More info at the NY Times.