How do we know ourselves? How do we know each other? Identity is both personal and public, elusive and fixed, and it is the subject of the seven short films that comprise an evening of international women's film known as the MadCat Festival tour coming to College of the Atlantic on Monday, May 5 at 6:30 p.m. in Gates Community Center.

Using a patient camera and lyrical imagery, these filmmakers gently probe how society, biology, place, and even appliances play a role in who we are and how we think of ourselves and others. Marvel at t he strength and vitality of Latvian widows in Janina Lapinskaite's, The Widows' Coast, and of Croatian market women in Ana Husman's The Market. Laugh a bit about girls and their mobile phones in Australian filmmaker Fiona McGee's Lost Without You. Wonder about an adopted albino girl's sense of self in Belgium filmmaker An Coenen's Impression of Light. Wonder at the differences that emerge between identical twin ballerinas in I Am Me by Austrian Kathrin Resetarits.

These films are just part of a full evening of short offerings - from one minute to thirty, coming from curator Ariella Ben-Dov's annual MadCat Festival Tour from San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "The films are top-notch; they're so creative, in fact, that you wonder why all movies aren't made for the art of it."

The program is free and open to the public. Call 288-5015 for more information.