BBC Three announces cast and releases first clip of Murdered By My Father
BBC Three’s anticipated factual-based drama Murdered By My Father, due to air online later this month, has brought together an exciting cast of British-Asian acting talent from the film, television and online world.
Published: 3 March 2016
We felt so excited to be working with our young cast and writer, the wonderful Vinay Patel, and to be part of BBC Three’s great story of breaking new creative talent.
Inspired by real events, Murdered By My Father is directed by multi-award-winning director Bruce Goodison and written by new screenwriter Vinay Patel, and tells the shocking story of the so-called ‘honour’ killing of a 17-year-old girl by her father – in a riveting exploration of how family love and duty can be turned to violence and murder.
Adeel Ahktar, who plays the character of Shahzad, is known for his performances in films Four Lions and The Dictator, and more recently in BBC dramas River, Capital and The Night Manager, as well as his BAFTA-nominated performance in Channel 4’s Utopia.
His character’s daughter, Salma, is played by Kiran Sonia Sawar, whose TV drama performances have included parts in American crime series Legends and the BBC’s Holby City. Salma’s love interest, Imi, is played by Mawaan Rizwan, known for his YouTube comedy channel Malum TV, his role in CBBC’s comedy show DNN and most recently for fronting BBC Three’s documentary How Gay Is Pakistan?
Executive producer, Aysha Rafaele, says: “We felt so excited to be working with our young cast and writer, the wonderful Vinay Patel, and to be part of BBC Three’s great story of breaking new creative talent.”
Focusing on the bonds of love and grief uniting a daughter with her widower father, as well as his need to control her burgeoning teenage wish for freedom, the young screenwriter Vinay Patel examines the psychology of this shocking but surprisingly prevalent crime. ‘Honour’ killings continue to occur across various cultures and communities in the UK today – with 12,000 'honour-based' crimes reported in the UK since 2010 and 29 murders committed in the past five years.
Based on testimonies of a range of individuals, many of whom have never spoken in public, as well as charities and institutions set up to deal with the problem of ‘honour’ based violence, the drama depicts a hard-hitting story about the destructive power of love. In addition, separate short-form content from BBC Three will include a short film defining Love, Shame and Guilt, a ‘Threebrief’ interview with the creators of the programme, a podcast exploring the story of an arranged marriage, and a separate piece about the recent history of 'honour' crimes, all available from BBC Three’s new online home.
Murdered By My Father follows the renowned success of BBC Three’s bold dramas based on real-life testimonies, including the critically acclaimed, BAFTA-award-winning Murdered By My Boyfriend and also Don’t Take My Baby.
Controller of BBC Three, Damian Kavanagh, says: “BBC Three continues to be the home of thought-provoking content for younger audiences to discover and I’m delighted that we’ve assembled such a strong cast for this remarkable, hard-hitting drama inspired by real events. This is also a good example of the creative freedom we now have - we’ve lined up some brilliant short-form content to supplement the film and we’re no longer constrained by timeslots - Murdered By My Father runs to 75 minutes because that’s what has worked for telling this incredibly powerful story.”
Murdered By My Father is a 1x75-minute factual-based drama which will be available online from late-March 2016 (date TBC). It was commissioned by Damian Kavanagh, Controller of BBC Three, and Elliot Reed, BBC Commissioning Editor Factual, made by BBC Documentaries Production and directed by the multi-award-winning Bruce Goodison. The Executive Producer is Aysha Rafaele, Head of BBC Documentaries Production, and the producer is Toby Welch.
A new blog post written by development producer Marco Crivellari is now live on the About The BBC Blog and pictures of the cast are available to registered users on bbcpictures.co.uk
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