15 Best Hidden Gem Movies Of 2017

From a documentary about cats to a documentary about rats or, more precisely, rats and racism – the focal point of the feature-length debut of filmmaker Theo Anthony.

Set in Anthony’s hometown of Baltimore – a city so rat infested the height of its trashcans are designed around how high rats can jump – the film imaginatively intertwines the Charm City’s rat problem with the manipulation of its black population through such tactics as segregated housing and redlining of services.

Fast-paced and innovative, Rat Film combines traditional documentary storytelling with more experimental elements and uses Baltimore’s rodent population and the humans who interact with them – from pet-keepers to exterminators – to explore the city’s troubled racial history and prompt uncomfortable realisations about the similar ways in which we treat the more ‘undesirable’ inhabitants of society. Be they human or animal.