[rooster crows]
[Joan] What this place does for my spirit has been immeasurable.
When you help a cat back to health, you know you have rescued it.
It's the best feeling in the world, and it's incredibly motivating
to keep going.
I always looked for sense of purpose in life,
something that was really deeply fulfilling.
This is quite a sensitive cat.
I think she's been attacked a few times attempting to come back to the house.
I think she just feels harassed or bullied,
and she just decided that she was just done with it.
-[interviewer] You come up here every day? -Yeah. Morning and evening.
[contemplative music playing]
I think the first time I saw a little kitten on the street,
and I knew unless I do something right now,
this kitten is gonna die.
That was just when my life started changing.
When we arrived here first,
I was feeding the cats on the street and the locals, they were shouting at me.
I think they really weren't happy that I was feeding them.
I thought we need to do something seriously about this.
I just realized, you know, we need a sanctuary for the cats here.
When you know that it's not about you, your dramas, your ego,
what goes on inside you, but suddenly it's about this little life,
that's where purpose really means something.
[opening theme music playing]
[peaceful piano music playing]
[Joan] Practically on every corner here on Syros, you will see cats.
You will see them everywhere.
Around every dumpster, little colonies of cats,
little kittens that need help.
I mean, we just find them among these colonies
you find all around the island.
We just happened to walk past yesterday and saw this kitten.
The state of its eyes, we thought it's very a big likelihood
that this kitten is gonna go blind unless we do something for him.
-[Lila hissing] -[Joan] Is that him there?
-[Lila] Yes, that's him. -[Joan] Hi, baby.
-[Lila hissing] -[Joan] Hi, baby.
And we'll go up and make sure that, you know, if the cat is not friendly,
try to gain its trust.
-[meowing] -[Lila] Hey.
-[Joan] His eyes look bad. -[can rattling]
[Joan] He's got a cold.
-He's definitely got a cold. -[Lila] Okay.
-Hi, baby. -[cat meows]
If we see a sick cat, we'll rescue it for sure,
and then we immediately call a vet clinic and say, "Can we bring in this cat?"
Ready?
One rainfall, and he would probably get pneumonia.
Pneumonia left untreated, within no time at all, he-- he would die.
There's about 25,000 inhabitants of Syros and an estimated 13,000 cats.
The attitude towards cats here is really that they're pests.
You know, they're like rats and mice, they don't want them around.
They think they're sick, do not touch them,
and this is where I really wanted to come in
and start changing their mentality.
[peaceful music playing]
[Panagiotis] Our island is a small place.
In the old days, there was no neutering program.
So, we ended up with a very large cat population.
I was not a, um… a cat person before.
The first approach was that there were too many. [chuckles]
[George] Most people love cats.
I don't know why that is.
[Manolis] I came to the island ten years ago.
I didn't know the situation here.
I saw thousands of stray cats.
They were breeding uncontrollably.
It was a vicious cycle of births and deaths.
We have become somewhat known for this cat sanctuary
that we started about ten years ago.
[Joan] We got about 20 cats that are waiting for adoption.
[clicks tongue] Go on, you.
And if we could get them all off to new homes, you know,
it frees us up so we can do more.
Mostly, they come with some kind of health issues
we'll have to help them through first.
And then, usually, we'll get them vaccinated,
and then we wait a few weeks
just to make sure that they don't have any adverse effect from the vaccination,
and then they're pretty much ready to be on their way.
[clicks tongue]
The adoptions process is not actually that easy,
because we try and get the cats adopted internationally.
It's a major process.
First of all, to find the people on Facebook.
So, then people write to us,
and we try and see what's the background of this person,
are they really suitable?
We have sent cats to Germany, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland.
Everywhere, really.
It's such a major process to get it here from Syros to Athens Airport,
then from Athens Airport to wherever they're going in the world.
A very big part of doing what we do is to connect with the cats,
give them names.
Just letting them know that you matter to us.
[Lila speaking French]
[Joan, in English] When we found Bella, we didn't actually at first know anything
about her nose cancer.
She's already had surgery, and we have had to keep Bella separate.
We thought with the nose cancer,
there's not a chance we'll ever get her adopted.
It'd be unlikely someone would sign up
to take responsibility for a cat like that.
[Lila] She's such a special cat.
She really enjoys the cuddle sessions,
and she's coming to sleep next to me every night.
So, yeah, there is something between us.
[gentle music playing]
[Joan] I'm from Denmark, and in Denmark, cats have an entirely different life.
I've had quite a varied experience in life.
I started out studying fashion when I was really young,
and for a while, I had my own company designing handbags.
It felt great, but there was something missing,
and it was like there was a greater sense of purpose missing in it.
At the age of 16, on my way to school one day,
I didn't get on the bus to go to school
but came home as if guided by a light of some kind,
took my passport and money, and I went to Heathrow Airport,
and I took a flight to New York.
And I began a journey
of trying to understand what the human purpose was.
[Joan] We actually met-- He was doing a seminar on The Art of Being Human,
and that was something that, of course, fascinated me deeply.
[Richard] She had left home at about the same age.
We instantly fell for each other,
and so we grew together,
and we've been together for 27 years, I think it is.
[Joan] Hi, sweetie. Go on. Come on. [clicks tongue]
Lucas, come.
[Richard] You seen Cham Cham?
[Joan] No.
This is Benji, also known as Juju.
-Tiny. Come on, Tiny. -[Joan] Tiny, come on.
[Richard] Is that Noogie?
-[Joan] It's Noogie. -[Richard] That's Noogie.
This is Mous Mous.
It's like a little mustache.
[Lila] Oh, hey… [indistinct]
[Joan] Lila, she's, uh, amazing because with no time at all,
and this is the honest truth,
she knew the names of all 65 cats, and I was just amazed.
Here is Temple, here is Sammy, here is Polly, here is Banjo,
here is Coco.
There is Kali, Lucas, Tiny, Snowy.
[gentle music playing]
[Lila] Richard and Joan are 100% committed to the cats,
but they are quite private persons.
[Richard] We lived a very luxurious life in Denmark.
And we bought a house actually next door to the queen,
her summer residence.
And the prince of Denmark
would come jogging by in the morning with his soldiers,
and one of them was playing a little pipe, and he would jog by,
and he would give a very royal, tiny nod to us if he saw us.
We traveled the world.
We've been in England, we've been in America,
we've been in Canada for a while.
We both, I think, were really just looking for a place
where we felt we could settle down.
I think he knew that I was looking for something
where I could feel fulfillment in my life.
Somewhere in those years, my health declined significantly
to the point where my doctor, who had sent me to every specialist, said,
"I can do nothing more for you."
[Joan] He was diagnosed with chronic fatigue.
He was tired all the time,
would just have to lay down most of the day.
He said, "Couldn't you go and live in the Mediterranean
and just sit by the water?"
And by a strange happenchance, we came to Syros.
We couldn't have chosen a worse time to move to Greece.
It was when the crisis first started in 2008.
Shops were closing down one by one.
We-- we reached a point where we had no money.
I mean, not one penny.
By this time, we'd invested everything from Denmark in this place,
but it was the feeling of this is either the end of the end,
or the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end.
We didn't know which one.
[Joan] I think we'd only been here a few weeks.
Richard, he came in and he said, "I think I saw a kitten in the garden."
And sure enough, there's two little kittens in the bush,
hiding in the bush,
and one of them was really ill,
and I immediately knew I had to trap it and take it to the vet.
The vet told me he didn't think this kitten would make it,
but I persisted because I think I was open to it.
Just sitting down every day, making sure he got antibiotics.
Having rescued one life, you want to rescue another one.
[meows]
You just saved a life. That feeling, you cannot describe that.
Joan and I made an agreement that 20, that was it.
"We gotta keep it under 25,
'cause 30 is--"
"Okay, 30 is the limit."
"I-I'm not going beyond 35."
"I mean, who has 35 cats?"
[Joan] I think we have now-- We have about 65 cats.
It puts a pressure on us every single time from the moment, when we rescue a cat,
because this place is just--
It's too packed, really, and we do need more space.
We really desperately need more space for it to not be quite so cramped
for the cats that do live here.
I was not very knowledgeable when I first started out.
We had a kitten that just used to sit here with me,
and she would suckle, and she would be so needy,
and I had such a connection with her.
I thought, "They're all healthy the first year."
"They're all healthy, all our rescues are good."
When the first winter hit, she became very ill.
I didn't know what happened to her, but she just went down like that,
and it turned out we had our first outbreak of the parvovirus,
which is absolutely deadly if cats are not vaccinated.
It was especially painful for me because the vet had said,
"If this cat had had vaccination, she would not have died."
When you learn the hard way, it hits you hard sometimes.
This kitten that we found on the street,
the first concern would be for his eyesight.
If his eyesight went, he would be in danger, basically.
-So, he's got very bad eyes. -[Maragkos] Yes.
[Joan] And he's-- he's been sneezing and coughing as well,
so he's definitely got a cold.
[Maragkos] You see the-- the red thing around the-- the teeth?
[Joan] Aw, poor baby.
[Richard] Joan is especially concerned with this little kitten.
It's been wobbling along,
and that calls out of Joan this motherly love for the cat.
-[Maragkos] He could have fungus. -[Joan] Fungus? Okay, wow.
-[Joan] We gotta be careful. -[Maragkos] You have to keep him separate.
-Yes. -[Joan] Yeah, okay.
[Maragkos] Okay.
[Joan] What's the situation with his eyes? Because they look quite bad to me.
-[Maragkos] He has, uh, cat flu. -[Joan] Okay.
[Maragkos] So, I have to put something for fleas and ticks…
-Joan] Yes. -…and, uh, in the next two, three weeks,
-we will have to vaccinate him. -[Joan] Yes.
[Lila] George, can you-- can you tell us how old is the cat?
-[Maragkos] How old? About five months. -[Lila] How old.
-[Joan] Okay. -[Lila] Thank you.
-[Joan] Okay. -[Richard] He's small.
-[Joan] Yeah, he is. Small for his age. -[Richard] Very small.
-[Joan] Very sweet. -[meows]
[Maragkos] Joan comes here with a stray almost every week.
This is amazing, I mean,
this is a… a lesson for the life.
How can I say?
She… she saves his life, absolutely.
[gentle music playing]
[Joan] It's a big thing to realize that, uh, you can't save them all.
But, I mean, as they say,
it makes a big difference for the one cat you can save.
[Richard] Nothing is done loosely with Joan about the cats.
It's a very busy day. It's seven days a week.
[uplifting guitar music playing]
You know, I-- I love the cats, I cuddle the cats.
I can't emphasize enough how much this is Joan's work.
You know, I'm just there for Joan.
She begins the day at about quarter to seven.
She'll feed the lower sanctuary cats,
then the middle sanctuary cats.
The top sanctuary cats.
-[Joan] Come on, sweetie. -[Richard] The back-door cats.
The back-of-the-middle-house cats.
And all the time notating if anyone's missing,
and if they are, she'll head off into the hills around
until she finds them.
While we've been here for the last ten years,
Richard has been in full support of what I've been doing.
It's just been beautiful to see him work.
Can-- can we try just one…
[in Greek] One, uh…
-[in English] Not rosemary. Lavender? -Lavender?
Can we try [in Greek] one [in English] today?
Um…
[Lila] Richard?
[laughing]
I-I don't know what-- what to say about him.
He loves spending time down in the garden.
Exactly. A little patio.
And, um, they can sit--
[worker] These are done with stone and mud.
We did this together, right?
-Exactly. We do it together. -[laughing] Together.
[both laughing]
[Joan] We have this belief that if we took on a project like this,
we-- we would just have, you know, an endless stream of people
who'd love to come volunteer, people who want to do good for the cats,
stay in this beautiful location at the same time as helping the cats.
I remember meeting Lila in the field and going back home and saying,
"I just met this young French lady, and she seems really great."
[Joan] I knew very quickly, she's very serious about this
and has a real genuine interest in the cats as well
-and wanting to learn about them. -[Richard] Mm.
[gentle music playing]
[Lila] I finished my master degree in History of Art,
and I decided to go around the world with my boyfriend,
and 2020 was not a good year to decide that.
We met Richard and Joan,
and we just fell in love immediately with the cats,
with them, with the place.
And she gave me the responsibility of feeding the cats
every night in the field.
One week turned into two, two weeks turned into one month,
and then it never ended.
I am still here, five months now.
Hello, Harry.
And now my boyfriend is in Ecuador.
I'm gonna join him for a month or two,
and then I will come back here, and we'll see what life give us.
[laughing]
These cats are, uh, stray cats
that we take care of every day, morning and evening.
And, um, they are all sterilized.
I can spend 15, 30 minutes with them.
Changing the water, feeding, checking that everybody is all right,
and, uh, spending time with them.
[chuckles] You know that cats love to eat a lot. [laughing]
[Joan] At the time we started doing something for the cats,
we saw more and more people being more involved,
the vet starting to do neutering.
The locals can see that with very little…
I mean, spay and neuter,
and giving them just a decent mouthful of food every day,
some fresh water…
It's amazing the difference you can do for cats.
-[cat meowing] -[Dorothea] Come, little ones.
[Stefanoy] The neighbors scold them,
because they don't feed the cats in their own space.
They put the food right here.
[Dorothea] They eat however much you give them.
I feed them every day.
[Manolis] We started making some cat cafes on the island,
neutering the cats that were living in the cat cafes.
I must say we have no funding.
We give our personal money. We have no money left. [laughing]
I have spent 15,000 euros in the last five years.
That's off the record, of course.
[Panagiotis] We are lucky to have people like Manolis Vorrisis, the vet,
who goes to a lot of trouble
to help stray cats find shelter.
[Lila] So how do you want to proceed?
[Manolis] We'll see. Don't know this area well,
but I think maybe if you call them, they will come here.
-[Lila] Okay. -[Joan] Flora said these cats are easy…
[Lila] So, it's "trapping, neutering, return."
That's the official term of what we do.
And the point is to control the burst population of the cats.
These ten cats will not become 50. [chuckles]
It's just ten cats that will stay ten cats.
-Manos, do you need all the cages? -[Manolis] I don't know.
We'll have to sit back for ten minutes for the cats to come to us…
-[Joan] Yeah, okay. -…to relax.
We'll try to get the boy.
[Manolis clicking tongue]
[Joan] So, Manos, he is one of the vets we met,
actually, the same month we arrived on this island ten years ago.
At the time, we started to do neutering for the cats,
which is where it really started to make a big difference.
With the incredible number of cats we have on this island,
the problem is huge.
So, we take a weekend where it's just all hands on deck,
trap the cats, bring them to the clinic, spay and neuter them,
then the next day, we travel out and release again.
So, TNR, it's a lot of hard work.
We feed about 100 cats every day.
The food alone is really big to just try and collect the funds for that.
[Richard] I gotta get this for Chloe.
-[Joan] Six. -[clerk] Okay. Never mind, leave it.
-[Richard] Yeah? We have six of those. -[clerk] Okay. I know.
-[clerk and Joan, in Greek] Thanks. -[Richard] Thanks, see you.
[all speaking Greek]
[Joan, in English] Doing this for ten years, I realize I can't save them all,
but I do what I can,
and I know that what I do makes a difference.
Obviously, also keeping this place going, to keep everything covered here…
Electricity bill, you know?
In wintertime, we have to keep the cats warm.
So, it's a huge responsibility
and definitely keeps me awake at night as well.
[Richard] Joan works 16 hours a day, never received a penny.
With the volunteers, we ensure that they can have a house,
electricity, use the car, have petrol,
and enough money to eat and not feel stressed,
but it's not a place
that you're gonna come and have an early retirement.
That's not gonna happen with anything to do with animals,
unless you're running something a bit not straight.
[Lila] I'm wearing rubber gloves because this little boy that we found
in the little streets may have fungus on his ears,
and that's a very contagious disease.
Uh, he has a big flu.
So, this is, um, affecting his nose and mouth,
and he has also bad, uh, bad eyes.
[purring]
-[interviewer] Does he have a name yet? -[Lila] We're thinking about "Milo."
That would be a great name for him.
He's very grateful to have been rescued.
He slept all the afternoon.
We already started antibiotics and the drops in the eyes,
and, um, he will stay in this room until we find a home for him.
But hopefully, that will be quick, right?
[uplifting music playing]
[Joan] So, Bella, we are actually extremely lucky
we got a-- an adoption offer for her in the UK.
And because we want to make sure that they travel safely,
we always send an escort.
At the moment, we're lucky enough to have Lila,
who is just a complete find.
This is what makes my heart happy,
and this is when I feel a sense of purpose in my life.
[Lila] I think she will be so happy and fulfilled in that house.
I'm so happy for her.
The first step is to bring her to Athens.
I will take the boat.
It's less stressful, I think.
And then we'll take a flight to Paris,
and then I'll drive her to the UK.
I think I will cry all the tears out because I really love her.
So, Helen, we obviously-- We just really wanted to thank you
because, um, we just thought that we might never find a home for Bella.
Well, we always said when we had another cat
that we wanted to give a-- a home to a cat that maybe was having problems
finding somebody to take them.
So, it's a-- it's a no-brainer. She needs a home.
[Joan] So, Helen, would you like to see a shot of her?
We got her here in the background. Yeah?
-Of course I want to see her. -[Joan] Okay.
[purring]
-Oh, she's enjoying that. -[Joan] She is, yeah.
She loves a fuss, she really does.
This is the thing, you give animals love,
and you just get it back in spades.
[Joan] Precisely.
Hi, Bella.
It's sad because some of them we rescue when they're tiny kittens,
and you get a very deep connection with them when they're that tiny.
So, it's-- it's-- it's very sad, but there's always another kitten waiting.
So, that's how we move on.
[Lila] Flora?
-[Flora] Hello. -[Lila] Hello. [in Greek] Hello.
-[Flora, in English] Fofi will stay out? -Yeah, I think so.
[Flora, in Greek] Inside, inside, inside.
-[kittens meowing loudly] -[Lila, in English] They're crying loudly.
[laughs] They are very hungry.
The kittens that Flora, she's feeding, someone found them in a bin.
They were ten days old.
That's so small.
[kittens meowing]
They opened their eyes two days ago. [chuckling]
[Lila] Yes, I see that.
And, uh, what do you think about the-- the cats here on Syros?
[Flora sighs] I think it gets better.
It was much worse, there was no vet.
There was no--
Not even a pet shop.
But now we are working with the clinic and with the neutering programs.
And now I'm working with Manolis,
with his feeding stations and his garden,
and we are giving them a completely different image…
-[Lila] Yes. -…of how actually cats are, really.
So, he helps a lot with this.
-This one is much, much… -[Lila] This one is very sleepy.
I'm completely hypnotized by him.
Hey. Hi, Milo.
Come, sweetie. Oh, my goodness.
You were so eager to come out and see the world again.
-[Lila chuckles] -Hey.
-[Lila] Hello, Milo. Oh, yes. -[Joan chuckling]
-[Joan] Look at him. No. -[Lila] You're not gonna stay long, right?
[Joan] But look at him. I mean, his progress is amazing.
[Lila] Oh, my God.
[Joan] Yeah, I mean, in six days, he--
-[Lila] His eyes are normal, aren't they? -That's quite dramatic, actually.
-Wow. -It's really quite dramatic.
His eyes are just such a perfect example of--
I mean, because they looked so awful when we found him,
and without the eye drops, again, he would just slowly, you know,
probably eventually go blind because they weren't treated.
He's gained weight as well, for sure.
I mean, I actually think his favorite thing in life is to eat.
He just-- He could eat nonstop if we let him.
Yeah, you're such a happy boy, Milo.
And you got an adoption offer as well. Yes, you do.
[Lila] Mm-hmm.
-Hey, what do you think about that? -What is this adoption offer?
-So, it's actually in Holland. -[Lila] Okay.
-[Joan] Yeah. -[Lila] Good.
[Joan] The family that wants to adopt him has a six-year-old boy.
-Oh, with a kitten like that, too. -So, I-- Yeah.
He will be so happy, yeah.
I think it'll be a really good match because he's so friendly,
and it's not all cats that are this cuddly at his age,
having just come from the street.
Do you want to go to the Netherlands?
-[Joan chuckles] -We have a home for you there.
-[Joan] Yeah. -[Lila] Oh, you're already going.
[both laughing]
-[Lila] "I'm on my way." -[chuckles]
[Lila] Hey, Bella.
-It's hard to say goodbye… -[warm music playing]
…but I know it's to have all the love and care and attention
she never dreamed of.
She was very shy when I arrived,
and she evolved a lot during those few months.
She's such a special cat.
There is something between us, so, of course,
I will be very sad to lose her.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Richard] Sometimes, Joan finds it difficult to come to these departures.
We cannot not be attached to these cats,
you know, because you love them back to life.
That's our work.
Our work is not to keep them. It's to-- to help them on their way.
You can see them.
I don't know if you went around the island--
You see that there are many cats, and nobody is chasing them away.
Some may not like this, but it's okay.
In general, Syros is a good place for the cats.
[gentle music playing]
[Manolis] I think that here in Syros, we can't live without cats.
[Panagiotis] Cats are part of our culture.
It's a proud animal that connects us to Mother Nature.
[Richard] When you see the cats happy,
and you see the gardens laid out the way they are,
it is unto itself, uh, a delight.
And there's quietness everywhere.
Come on…
[Joan] The cats, they bring us so much happiness.
Their little faces, each their little personal characters.
Their energy just fills this place with life,
and it's beautiful.
[Richard] [indistinct] these steps done.
-To the roof. -[Joan] Oh, okay.
There's this joke that they say that cat rescue is a bit like the mafia.
You know, once you're in, there's no way out.
For ten years, this has been abandoned at the bottom of our garden.
I mean, the sanctuary is what, ten meters over there?
It's just been our ideal vision
of what could be a little sanctuary village.
-[Joan] Mm. -[Richard] It's just so strange
that it's been here, and it's for sale.
[both chuckling]
These are the ones most finished, these three,
which will be for the volunteers, visitors, helpers.
That one, it will be a little adoption center.
[Joan] From the moment we pick them up, and they're sick and they're ill,
and some of them you think are not gonna make it,
and they pull through…
Getting them to heal up, taking them through that whole process,
seeing them bloom, coming back to life.
It's like you can just see the light coming back into them again.
And then to finding a home for them
and eventually seeing pictures of them in a home
where they are so loved, and they're, you know,
living the life a cat should live…
It's just-- it's incredible. It's just absolutely incredible.
[Richard] It's the idea of a sanctuary village for the cats,
for Syros to see the natural world's thriving.
Not more than 500, Joan.
-Promise me. Not more than-- -[Joan] Okay.
-[Richard] All right, 1,000, is it? -[Joan] Okay, fair enough.
[warm music playing]
[closing theme music playing]