Ever since Catfish premiered at Sundance in January, the documentary has engendered controversy.
Made for just $30,000, it grossed more than $3 million and has left audiences scrambling to figure out whether the amazing story being told is just an elaborate hoax.
Directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, Catfish tells the story of Schulman’s brother, Nev, a 24-year-old photographer who meets the woman of his dreams online. Nev found out the hoax by traveling out to the family’s Michigan house to find that Angela is really an overweight mother of several children with disabilities, none of whom have a gift for painting or music. Angela had fabricated the whole thing.
When Catfish played at Sundance – and as Relativity outbid Paramount in a bidding war for the film’s rights – the filmmakers were grilled at a Q&A over whether they really knew what was going on all along. “This is definitely fair use because it’s a true story,” says Marc Smerling, a producer on Catfish.
Catfish Trailer (English)
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