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Cats Needed to Star in Google's Master and Margarita

Still from the movie "Master and Margarita"

Google are on the hunt for charismatic felines to star in their online adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's classic novel, “Master and Margarita.”

The special project, named "Master and Margarita: I Was There," marks 125 years since Bulgakov's birth, and will be ran in partnership with Mosfilm Studios. The event will involve celebrity participants and normal Russians reading the novel aloud live from eight cities across the country, as well as Israel's Tel Aviv.

The twenty hours of narration will be split into two parts, and streamed live in 360° video format via YouTube on Nov. 11 and 12. Green screen technology will be used in the videos to transport viewers to Bulgakov's rich fictional world — but real life cats will also be needed on set.

Cat owners in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Vladivostok can audition their pets by posting a picture of their cat on social media sites VKontakte or Instagram with the hashtag #котММ. Animal submissions are open until Oct. 25, while human participants can apply to take part as a narrator until Oct. 5.

Cats will not be asked to read aloud from the novel.

Published in 1966, “Master and Margarita” is a satire about Satan's visit to Stalin's Russian.


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