Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! 2014 / Catch Me Daddy / United Kingdom 2014
Music-video director Daniel Wolfe and his brother Matthew confirm that style and content need not be mutually exclusive with their impressive debut, which tracks the doomed attempts of a British Asian girl runaway to escape her protective family. Performed with affecting naturalism by a cast that mixes trained and non-professional actors.
Music-video director Daniel Wolfe and his brother Matthew confirm that style and content need not be mutually exclusive with their impressive debut, which tracks the doomed attempts of a British Pakistani teen to escape her violently protective family. Initially conceived as a Western set on the Yorkshire Moors, the story begins with Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) on the run with her Scottish boyfriend (Conor McCarron). In no hurry to lay out the whole story or the connections between its characters, the film turns its attention to two groups of dangerous-looking men: a pair of white thugs and four Pakistani guys. Who is working for whom? It’s only gradually revealed that pink-haired Laila has brought dishonor on her family, and there will be a reckoning. Recalling the films of Andrea Arnold – also shot by cinematographer Robbie Ryan – Catch Me Daddy feels convincingly and affectingly rooted in its depiction of place and community.
Charles Gant
111 min / Color, DCP
Director Daniel Wolfe
/ Screenplay Daniel Wolfe, Matthew Wolfe
/ Dir. of Photography Robbie Ryan
/ Music Matthew Wolfe, Daniel Thomas Freeman
/ Editor Dominic Leung, Tom Lindsay
/ Producer Mike Elliot, Hayley Williams
/ Production Emu Films
/ Cast Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, Conor McCarron, Wasim Zakir, Gary Lewis
/ Contact Altitude Film Sales Ltd.
Daniel Wolfe and his brother Matthew are two British siblings with a passionate interest in music and film. Daniel is known as a talented director of music videos and commercials, for which he has received numerous awards, including Britain’s best music video of 2010; his best-known videos are for Plan B and The Shoes. The latter’s shocking video for Time to Dance, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as a maniacal murderer of hipsters, can be seen on YouTube. His brother Matthew, who co-wrote the screenplay for Catch Me Daddy, is known for playing the piano on Stephen Fretwell’s album Magpie. Their debut was selected for this year’s festival in Cannes.
Altitude Film Sales Ltd.
34 Foubert's Place, W1F 7PX, London
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 207 478 7612
E-mail: [email protected]
Daniel Wolfe
Film Director
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