Catch Me Daddy

Sameena Jabeen Ahmed in Catch Me Daddy © Film 4

Catch Me Daddy, the highly anticipated debut feature from music video director Daniel Wolfe, screened at cinemas nationwide on Friday 27th February 2015. The taut and visceral thriller, which premiered to acclaim in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2014, filmed in Yorkshire with investment from Screen Yorkshire’s Yorkshire Content Fund.

Sameena Jabeen Ahmed, who won best newcomer at the London Film Festival, stars as Laila, in hiding from her own family and living with her boyfriend on the Yorkshire moors. When her brother and a group of thugs hired by her father turn up in town she is forced to flee for her life.

Catch Me Daddy marks the feature film debut of award-winning commercials and music video director Daniel Wolfe, who wrote as well as directed the film, with his brother Matthew Wolfe on board as co-writer. Wolfe has overturned the conventions of the thriller genre, with a female lead stepping up as the heroine of the piece.

Locations

Catch Me Daddy filmed at locations including Mixenden, Todmorden, Baildon, Halifax, Wainstall, Rishworth Moor, Holmfirth. Trainees on Screen Yorkshire’s ‘The List’ scheme were amongst the local crew employed on the six week shoot on location in the region.

Daniel Wolfe’s credits include promos for Plan B’s double-platinum album The Defamation, Strickland Banks, and Chase & Status. His video for The Shoes’ Time to Dance starring Jake Gyllenhaal became a YouTube sensation clocking up half a million hits in just two days and was shot by award-winning cinematographer Robbie Ryan who has collaborated with Wolfe once again on Catch Me Daddy. In 2010 Wolfe won Best Director at the UK Music Video awards.

Catch Me Daddy © Film 4

The cast is a mixture of exciting street casting and more established names like Conor McCarron, Gary Lewis and Nichola Burley. Newcomer Sameena Jabeen Ahmed plays the lead role of Laila, with Anwar Hussain, Barry Nunney, Shabaz Kaman, Ali Ahmad and Adnan Zakir Hussain among those making their screen debuts.

Catch Me Daddy is produced by Mike Elliott and co-produced by Hayley Williams for Emu Films, and co-developed and co-financed by Film4 and the BFI Film Fund, with additional production finance support from Screen Yorkshire and Lip Sync with Studio Canal distributing in UK. Katherine Butler, Christopher Collins, Jim Mooney and Walli Ullah are Executive Producers. Altitude Film Sales is handling worldwide sales. Creative England provided crewing and locations support.

Catch Me Daddy © Film 4

Reviews

‘’In this wildly promising debut feature the landscape becomes a kind of holy sanctuary for two young lovers fleeing a murderous plot. Working with Robbie Ryan, who continues to be one of the best things to happen to British cinema in years, Wolfe shoots the Yorkshire landscape like the setting of a long-decayed fairy-tale. Ahmed makes a blistering first impression…and is ideally paired with the effortlessly sharp McCarron….A terrifically bright start for its director’’.
Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

‘’Gritty social realism meets classic western elements in this poetically bleak chase thriller from first-time British director Daniel Wolfe.Ryan’s work is exemplary, finding lonely poetry in shabby urban spaces and desolate moorland moonscapes…. A confident, gripping, highly charged debut that will appeal to fans of artfully gritty British social realism in the tradition of Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay.” Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter

‘’Catch Me Daddy is a fierce and boldly questioning drama about tribal politics and gender politics in contemporary Britain….. there is an energy and boldness in the debut work from Daniel Wolfe.’’ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

‘’Brit pop-promo helmer Daniel Wolfe impresses with a northern English Western. Beautifully shot on 35mm by justly garlanded lenser Robbie Ryan, and performed with affecting naturalism by a cast that mixes trained thesps with non-professionals, the pic looks certain for further fest action following its Cannes Directors’ Fortnight berth’’ Charles Gant, Variety

‘’This debut feature from music director Daniel Wolfe is a social-realist thriller saved from unremittingly bleakness by pockets of poetry, a smattering of tenderness and a couple of humorous scenes…Robbie Ryan’s 35mm lensing is fittingly urgent but still finds time to capture the beauty of a rising mist or to pull back and locate its hardscrabble characters within an arresting landscape…..a promising debut, deserving of attention.’’ Jamie Graham, Total Film