Cute cats get their own film festival

An internet phenomenon is to be celebrated in the world's first film festival dedicated to funny videos of cats.

The Internet Cat Video Film Festival will take place on 30 August in Minneapolis, reports the BBC.

It is described as a chance for people to come together and "LOL [laugh out loud] in the presence of others".

Organiser Katie Czarniecki Hill said fans had until 30 July to nominate their favourite clips.

"I could not be more excited to literally bring this solo cat video viewing behaviour out in the open," she wrote in a blog post.

Videos of cats online have come to symbolise the internet community's fondness for amusing quick-hit entertainment.

Stand-out examples include Keyboard Cat which has notched up more than 25 million hits since it was uploaded to YouTube in 2007.

Another classic, Surprised Kitty, has done even better - attracting an amazing 64 million page views since 2009.

Ed Robinson, creative director at London-based agency The Viral Factory, told the BBC that funny cat videos were a "universal language of joy".

"It works across all cultures, all languages... and we are genetically tuned to have an emotional response to cute animals," he said.