A characters study of a pleasure-seeking yet vulnerable woman who has reached a point in her life when a confrontation with oneself is inevitable.
Daphne is 31, too young to settle, too old to live aimlessly. She is a real cynic when it comes to love, imprisoned in an existential vacuum. Armed with statements by philosopher Slavoj Žižek, she sharply and successfully fends off any form of emotional approach. Long nights, drink and a variety of lovers form a welcome distraction from the question: what do I want? But when she saves the life of a shopkeeper, stabbed in a failed robbery, the impenetrable armour she wears to protect herself begins to crack and Daphne is forced to fight against the inevitability of a much needed change in her life.
"As well as a zesty character study, Scotsman Burns has crafted a great London movie. That urban sprawl hasn’t felt so alive on film since around the turn of the millennium, with films like Jamie Thraves’ The Low Down or Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland. Like those filmmakers, Burns finds new angles through which to view the city and vivid, less glamorous neighbourhoods in which to set the drama. The result is a film of compassion and soul, with a protagonist at its heart who’s sometimes hard to like but easy to adore." (Jamie Dunn, The Skinny)
Peter Mackie Burns
Born in 1967 in Scotland. It was already his first short film, Milk, that won numerous awards around the world including the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival. The film played at over one hundred international film festivals. Daphne is his first fiction feature film.