August 10, 2025 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: August 10, 2025
Oscar-nomnited director Laura Checkoway’s latest is called “ The Cat Man Eshete”, a doc about an Ethiopian refugee who is mostly unhoused, who cares for feral cats in Brooklyn.
Oscar-nomnited director Laura Checkoway’s latest is called “ The Cat Man Eshete”, a doc about an Ethiopian refugee who is mostly unhoused, who cares for feral cats in Brooklyn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, Conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to an Academy Award nominee,
Laura check Away. She has such an interesting and homespun
because it takes place in Brooklyn documentary that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
You can now view online.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's called The Catman Sheddy and it's about a refugee
who finds his calling and caring for stray cats. And
we find out his history because he is he escaped
war torn Ethiopia, but then he ended up on the
streets of Brooklyn. First of all, how did you find him, Laura?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I was walking in my earth.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Sorry, I was walking in my neighborhood in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn,
and I saw a gentle who was surrounded by cats
and also pigeons. He feeds a lot of pigeons who
come around for the cat food, and I was curious
about who he was. And on another occasion, I was
(01:14):
passing by and our eyes met and just that fire
or energy that connects between people was there. Instantly we
started chatting, and right in that first conversation, I asked
him if I could film him and his cats, which
(01:34):
is some I haven't done before as far as just immediately,
almost instinctively, it just came out of me that I
wanted to know more about him and who he was,
and so we started filming, I think within the next
week or so.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So did you know right away this is my next documentary?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's funny because.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I work from film to film, and there's a certain
like what I described with Ashetti in my eye contact,
there's this certain fire inside that I think we all
have and want to keep kindled, and often as an artist,
they're different waves of inspiration that each of us go through.
And so sometimes you know, as I'm finishing one film,
(02:25):
I'm wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Is am I ever going to feel that spark again?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And you know it when you feel it, So I
would say that subconsciously, I think I knew it right
and consciously on some level because I did bring up
the idea with him and he said yes right then
and there. However, did I know that it would take
several years and that we would develop such a close
(02:48):
friendship and bond way beyond the film and all of
the other things that come along with making a film
like this, you know, had to unfold in time.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Why did it take years?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Well, it was an entirely independent film, and so it
was really made with craft and heart, and the collaboration
of it was really me and one other camera person.
There are two people that shot it with me over
the years, and that it took a long time to
(03:23):
understand the dynamics and all. You know, it's a very
multi layered story. And there's a community of neighbors who
are also helping a Schetdy feed the cats. Is Shetty
and also helping a Shetty absolutely and Ishetty is, as
you mentioned, a refugee from Ethiopia who escaped as a
(03:45):
young man. He was in college at Addis Ababa University
from a little boy. He was a very advanced student
who was always very hungry for knowledge and information and
education and he really excelled and he then the Civil
war broke out and he fled to save his life.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
He fled on foot with a friend.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
It was a complete secret from all of their other
friends and loved ones.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
They escaped.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
He says it took them a year on foot to
make their way through the war to wind up in
the Sudan in the Sahara Desert, where he lived for
five years in a refugee camp before being brought to
New York City, which was I think he said he
arrived in nineteen eighty seven, and so he's been in
(04:38):
New York City for almost forty years. He is such
a New Yorker. And he also in many ways is
his story really represents the lasting impacts of being a
refugee that even after all of these decades, his homesickness
and grief and longing is still very very strong.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Had he stayed in Ethiopia, what would he have done
career wise?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Well, that's a great question. I believe he was. He
was studying management and administration. He is such a deep soul,
very philosophical, very interested in people, in psychology. He's an
incredibly keen observer of people. As soon as you meet him,
(05:26):
he can basically read you and who you are and
all of your qualities. And he also is such a historian,
a living through experience historian of Ethiopian history and culture.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
He's obsessed with Ethiopia.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And what is still going on there today, and so
I see him as take your pick, but he's a
very prolific writer. He also he should be lecturing in
a university to hundreds of students.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And what did he do career wise when he came here,
because he wasn't always homeless.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah, he worked for this at the Statue of Liberty
for a short time, and then he got into construction.
He actually enrolled in college at Baroque College. When he
first arrived in New York City, he worked construction and
then he had a severe accident where he fell and
was in the hospital for a year, and it took
(06:28):
him a long time to recover. And so from my understanding,
he had already been through war, a refugee camp. But
he has such an incredible spirit and just such determination
and optimism that I think he you know, it's interesting
to think about what paths he could have taken and
(06:53):
perhaps still will take, and.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
That accident I think really his trajectory.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
How did he end up homeless? It was related to
the accident, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So he received a settlement which paid for an apartment
that he was living in for over twenty years he
lived there and he was a part of this community
in Brooklyn, and then the money ran out and he
ultimately was evicted and so he went across the street
from the building where he lived, and that's where he
(07:28):
met this family of cats who he then devoted his
life to.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
It's such a unique story.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I am speaking with Academy Award nominee Laura check Away
and about her new documentary, which you can now see
various platforms, The Catman a Shetty. It's the story of
a man who made his escape from war torn Ethiopia.
He made his way here and ended up working here,
(08:00):
fully employed here than getting injured on the job, and
then the money from the settlement runs out and he's
living on the streets.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
But did he come here legally? Is he legal? He
is legal.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Have you spoken to him recently about what's going on
with other refugees.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes, I speak with him every day. As I mentioned,
we are very dear friends. And Ischetti has a place,
so he appears to many people to be homeless because
of the way he presents himself. And he also spends
most of his time outside with his cats.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, he loves his cats.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
He's very devoted to them and one might say obsessed
with protecting them. It seems to be very much a
part of his way of dealing with his grief and trauma.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
He doesn't like to take medication. He loves nature and music.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
And his cats, and so that's really the cats are
his medicine.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And he.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh, no, I forgot, I know, I don't know the
question I have to take talked about?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yes, sorry, So he has.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Refuge yeah, and so he he has a subsidized room
in the Times Square Port Authority in a building for
people who would otherwise be unhoused or have severe mental
health issues. And just in recent years he has befriended
(09:37):
a number of new refugees from mostly from Senegal and
the Sudan as well as Venezuela. But almost every day
he shares about how in that area a lot of
former hotels have now been converted into refugee shelters. And
so he's meeting young people, family who really connect with
(10:02):
him because I think they see him sitting outside and
he has such a just warm regal presence to him
in a way about him, and so people, you know,
he's very misunderstood, but also people who have open minds
really are drawn to him. You know.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It seems to me he is capable of working right
if he wanted to. I mean, he is disabled, but
he could work, and you mentioned you thought he would
make a good, you know, a great college professor. Have
you turned on others in the educational community to his story,
because I think, yeah, I mean, this is a first
(10:42):
hand account of somebody that's it's a miraculous story him
just escaping war torn Ethiopia and just that bravery and that,
I mean, how many people would leave behind their family
and their friends and not even say where they're going,
but basically to save their lives.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yes, and he really is such an inspiring example. And
also his family, who he never saw again and you know,
doesn't know what happened to them.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
He comes from a.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Very large, very loving family who he thinks of, you know,
with such longing and heart sickness. And it's just such
a beautiful example of how when that is instilled in you,
nothing are almost nothing can take it away, and hopefully nothing.
(11:36):
And yeah, so he carries that with him. His heart
just overflows, and he has so much compassion for the cats,
for all animals, and also for other humans, especially other
people in the streets. Like you mentioned some of the
newer refugees who he's befriended from the Sudan. He is
giving what he has to them, and so he's very
(12:00):
generous with others and.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yes would.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The film was released on World Refugee Day and it
has been spreading around the world. The response has been
absolutely incredible, especially from Ethiopians and.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Has anyone offered to put him in touch with his family?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
A lot of people who have seen the film want
to bring him back to Gonder, Ethiopia, where he's from.
Some people have reached out wondering if he was their
family member who fled. He is not so far. When
I ask him about the idea of maybe visiting Ethiopia
again someday or trying to reconnect with loved ones on
(12:48):
the internet, he says no and that that chapter is closed.
I think it might be too much for him, and
you never know, as things continue to happen, maybe more
connections will open up. There are a lot of people
who have seen the film, including some Ethiopia New Yorkers
(13:11):
who have come looking for him and actually found where
he sits based on watching the film, just to get
to know him, to be with him, to help support him.
So it's really been amazing the immediate response that has
been very direct and the outpouring of love for him
and for his cats.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Where can people see The cat Manachete? Which platforms it is?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
It's streaming on Al Jazeera, It's on their Witness documentary series,
and so you can watch it on YouTube for free.
The cat MANACHETI. It's a twenty five minute film. It's
a very full story in a short, short capsule. And
just regarding when you mentioned have other people in education
(13:59):
learned about him and his story.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We're really eager to.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Keep spreading this and for the film to have a
big impact beyond just being a documentary that people watch.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
We really want this to be transformative.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Because it's really both a story about a refugee and
it's really a story about somebody who chooses partial homelessness,
and that's interesting in and of itself. I'm sorry, we
are out of time. The Catman Aschetti. That is spelled
E s h e t E if you google it
(14:34):
E s H E t E. The Catman Aschetti on
YouTube and Al Jazeera. And I want to thank Laura
check Away looking forward to her next documentary when that
breaks into her life, because that seems to be how
you've inspired Laura
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, Conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to an Academy Award nominee,
Laura check Away. She has such an interesting and homespun
because it takes place in Brooklyn documentary that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
You can now view online.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's called The Catman Sheddy and it's about a refugee
who finds his calling and caring for stray cats. And
we find out his history because he is he escaped
war torn Ethiopia, but then he ended up on the
streets of Brooklyn. First of all, how did you find him, Laura?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I was walking in my earth.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Sorry, I was walking in my neighborhood in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn,
and I saw a gentle who was surrounded by cats
and also pigeons. He feeds a lot of pigeons who
come around for the cat food, and I was curious
about who he was. And on another occasion, I was
(01:14):
passing by and our eyes met and just that fire
or energy that connects between people was there. Instantly we
started chatting, and right in that first conversation, I asked
him if I could film him and his cats, which
(01:34):
is some I haven't done before as far as just immediately,
almost instinctively, it just came out of me that I
wanted to know more about him and who he was,
and so we started filming, I think within the next
week or so.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So did you know right away this is my next documentary?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's funny because.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
I work from film to film, and there's a certain
like what I described with Ashetti in my eye contact,
there's this certain fire inside that I think we all
have and want to keep kindled, and often as an artist,
they're different waves of inspiration that each of us go through.
And so sometimes you know, as I'm finishing one film,
(02:25):
I'm wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Is am I ever going to feel that spark again?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
And you know it when you feel it, So I
would say that subconsciously, I think I knew it right
and consciously on some level because I did bring up
the idea with him and he said yes right then
and there. However, did I know that it would take
several years and that we would develop such a close
(02:48):
friendship and bond way beyond the film and all of
the other things that come along with making a film
like this, you know, had to unfold in time.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Why did it take years?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Well, it was an entirely independent film, and so it
was really made with craft and heart, and the collaboration
of it was really me and one other camera person.
There are two people that shot it with me over
the years, and that it took a long time to
(03:23):
understand the dynamics and all. You know, it's a very
multi layered story. And there's a community of neighbors who
are also helping a Schetdy feed the cats. Is Shetty
and also helping a Shetty absolutely and Ishetty is, as
you mentioned, a refugee from Ethiopia who escaped as a
(03:45):
young man. He was in college at Addis Ababa University
from a little boy. He was a very advanced student
who was always very hungry for knowledge and information and
education and he really excelled and he then the Civil
war broke out and he fled to save his life.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
He fled on foot with a friend.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
It was a complete secret from all of their other
friends and loved ones.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
They escaped.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
He says it took them a year on foot to
make their way through the war to wind up in
the Sudan in the Sahara Desert, where he lived for
five years in a refugee camp before being brought to
New York City, which was I think he said he
arrived in nineteen eighty seven, and so he's been in
(04:38):
New York City for almost forty years. He is such
a New Yorker. And he also in many ways is
his story really represents the lasting impacts of being a
refugee that even after all of these decades, his homesickness
and grief and longing is still very very strong.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Had he stayed in Ethiopia, what would he have done
career wise?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Well, that's a great question. I believe he was. He
was studying management and administration. He is such a deep soul,
very philosophical, very interested in people, in psychology. He's an
incredibly keen observer of people. As soon as you meet him,
(05:26):
he can basically read you and who you are and
all of your qualities. And he also is such a historian,
a living through experience historian of Ethiopian history and culture.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
He's obsessed with Ethiopia.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And what is still going on there today, and so
I see him as take your pick, but he's a
very prolific writer. He also he should be lecturing in
a university to hundreds of students.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And what did he do career wise when he came here,
because he wasn't always homeless.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah, he worked for this at the Statue of Liberty
for a short time, and then he got into construction.
He actually enrolled in college at Baroque College. When he
first arrived in New York City, he worked construction and
then he had a severe accident where he fell and
was in the hospital for a year, and it took
(06:28):
him a long time to recover. And so from my understanding,
he had already been through war, a refugee camp. But
he has such an incredible spirit and just such determination
and optimism that I think he you know, it's interesting
to think about what paths he could have taken and
(06:53):
perhaps still will take, and.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
That accident I think really his trajectory.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
How did he end up homeless? It was related to
the accident, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So he received a settlement which paid for an apartment
that he was living in for over twenty years he
lived there and he was a part of this community
in Brooklyn, and then the money ran out and he
ultimately was evicted and so he went across the street
from the building where he lived, and that's where he
(07:28):
met this family of cats who he then devoted his
life to.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
It's such a unique story.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I am speaking with Academy Award nominee Laura check Away
and about her new documentary, which you can now see
various platforms, The Catman a Shetty. It's the story of
a man who made his escape from war torn Ethiopia.
He made his way here and ended up working here,
(08:00):
fully employed here than getting injured on the job, and
then the money from the settlement runs out and he's
living on the streets.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
But did he come here legally? Is he legal? He
is legal.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Have you spoken to him recently about what's going on
with other refugees.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes, I speak with him every day. As I mentioned,
we are very dear friends. And Ischetti has a place,
so he appears to many people to be homeless because
of the way he presents himself. And he also spends
most of his time outside with his cats.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, he loves his cats.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
He's very devoted to them and one might say obsessed
with protecting them. It seems to be very much a
part of his way of dealing with his grief and trauma.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
He doesn't like to take medication. He loves nature and music.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
And his cats, and so that's really the cats are
his medicine.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And he.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh, no, I forgot, I know, I don't know the
question I have to take talked about?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yes, sorry, So he has.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Refuge yeah, and so he he has a subsidized room
in the Times Square Port Authority in a building for
people who would otherwise be unhoused or have severe mental
health issues. And just in recent years he has befriended
(09:37):
a number of new refugees from mostly from Senegal and
the Sudan as well as Venezuela. But almost every day
he shares about how in that area a lot of
former hotels have now been converted into refugee shelters. And
so he's meeting young people, family who really connect with
(10:02):
him because I think they see him sitting outside and
he has such a just warm regal presence to him
in a way about him, and so people, you know,
he's very misunderstood, but also people who have open minds
really are drawn to him. You know.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It seems to me he is capable of working right
if he wanted to. I mean, he is disabled, but
he could work, and you mentioned you thought he would
make a good, you know, a great college professor. Have
you turned on others in the educational community to his story,
because I think, yeah, I mean, this is a first
(10:42):
hand account of somebody that's it's a miraculous story him
just escaping war torn Ethiopia and just that bravery and that,
I mean, how many people would leave behind their family
and their friends and not even say where they're going,
but basically to save their lives.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Yes, and he really is such an inspiring example. And
also his family, who he never saw again and you know,
doesn't know what happened to them.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
He comes from a.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Very large, very loving family who he thinks of, you know,
with such longing and heart sickness. And it's just such
a beautiful example of how when that is instilled in you,
nothing are almost nothing can take it away, and hopefully nothing.
(11:36):
And yeah, so he carries that with him. His heart
just overflows, and he has so much compassion for the cats,
for all animals, and also for other humans, especially other
people in the streets. Like you mentioned some of the
newer refugees who he's befriended from the Sudan. He is
giving what he has to them, and so he's very
(12:00):
generous with others and.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yes would.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The film was released on World Refugee Day and it
has been spreading around the world. The response has been
absolutely incredible, especially from Ethiopians and.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Has anyone offered to put him in touch with his family?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
A lot of people who have seen the film want
to bring him back to Gonder, Ethiopia, where he's from.
Some people have reached out wondering if he was their
family member who fled. He is not so far. When
I ask him about the idea of maybe visiting Ethiopia
again someday or trying to reconnect with loved ones on
(12:48):
the internet, he says no and that that chapter is closed.
I think it might be too much for him, and
you never know, as things continue to happen, maybe more
connections will open up. There are a lot of people
who have seen the film, including some Ethiopia New Yorkers
(13:11):
who have come looking for him and actually found where
he sits based on watching the film, just to get
to know him, to be with him, to help support him.
So it's really been amazing the immediate response that has
been very direct and the outpouring of love for him
and for his cats.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Where can people see The cat Manachete? Which platforms it is?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
It's streaming on Al Jazeera, It's on their Witness documentary series,
and so you can watch it on YouTube for free.
The cat MANACHETI. It's a twenty five minute film. It's
a very full story in a short, short capsule. And
just regarding when you mentioned have other people in education
(13:59):
learned about him and his story.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We're really eager to.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Keep spreading this and for the film to have a
big impact beyond just being a documentary that people watch.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
We really want this to be transformative.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Because it's really both a story about a refugee and
it's really a story about somebody who chooses partial homelessness,
and that's interesting in and of itself. I'm sorry, we
are out of time. The Catman Aschetti. That is spelled
E s h e t E if you google it
(14:34):
E s H E t E. The Catman Aschetti on
YouTube and Al Jazeera. And I want to thank Laura
check Away looking forward to her next documentary when that
breaks into her life, because that seems to be how
you've inspired Laura
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
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