Cathy's Child
| Cathy's Child | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Donald Crombie |
| Produced by | Pom Oliver Errol Sullivan |
| Written by | Ken Quinnell |
| Based on | book A Piece of Paper by Dick Wordley |
| Starring |
Michele Fawdon Alan Cassell Bryan Brown Arthur Dignam Willie Fennell |
| Music by | William Motzing |
| Cinematography | Gary Hansen |
| Edited by | Tim Wellburn |
| Distributed by | Village Roadshow |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Budget | A$325,000 |
| Box office | A$135,000 (Australia) $100,000 (overseas sales) |
Cathy's Child is a 1979 Australian film, directed by Donald Crombie and starring Michele Fawdon, Alan Cassell and Bryan Brown.
Cathy Baikas (Fawdon) is a woman of Greek heritage who lives in Sydney, Australia with her three-year-old daughter. When her daughter's father kidnaps the child and takes her back to Greece, Cathy discovers the authorities can do little to help her. She turns to the media. The editor of a major daily newspaper (Cassell) proves sympathetic to Cathy's problem and begins giving her case press coverage, because the same situation had happened to him. The film is based on a true story.
On 14 January 1973 Greek born John Baikas left Australia for Athens, taking his daughter Maris with him on a forged passport. Her mother Cathy found out and tried to get her back. The government seemed to do little so she contacted journalist Dick Wordley to run a campaign.
The film used the real names for the characters of Cathy Baikas, Dick Wordley and Wordley's editor Paul Nicholson. However other names were fictionalised.
Ken Quinnell read Dick Wordley's book on the case. He gave it to producer Errol Sullivan who thought it might make "a small but highly emotional film, one that could reach the middle audience in Australia - the audience that people like Hoyts say doesn't exist: namely, the North Shore, blue rinse set."
It was thought the budget had to be kept below $400,000 so the action was set in the present day rather than 1973. Finance from the Australian Film Commission, the New South Wales Film Corporation, Roadshow Distributors and $55,000 of private investment. Gillian Armstrong was originally meant to be director and money was raised from the AFC on the basis of her name, but there was a potential clash with My Brilliant Career so Donald Crombie was offered the job instead; Crombie had a history of making films about women.
Filming started on June 1978, with the majority of the film shot in Sydney over four weeks, with a week's filming in Greece. Money had been allocated in the budget for an overseas actor to play the Australian consul in Greece but the filmmakers were unable to find any one for an appropriate price and Willie Fennell took the role.
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