Dominic West Hitches a Ride with 'Five Star Fouad' in Rib-Tickling Jameson Film

London-based young director Ollie Wolf’s winning entry for the Jameson First Shot has been released to much applause at its premiere at Paramount Studios in Hollywood.

Jameson First Shot was created to discover exciting new talent who have something new to share with the world and help them to create short films that Hollywood will take notice of. The best production team in the business always helps but a renowned lead can make all the difference – this year the winners had award-winning British actor Dominic West at their disposal.

One of three winners chosen out of thousands of worldwide applicants, Ollie’s short ‘Five Star Fouad’ was written by the filmmaker himself. “I’d been playing with this loose idea of a bank robber using a taxi as a getaway car for a little while," commented Ollie. "With the ease of these taxi apps, it seemed so logical. So when Dominic mentioned he wanted to do something comedic for Jameson First Shot it seemed a great concept to write around. The comic tension of Gary – Dominic’s character – looking for a fast getaway, offset with the driver Fouad trying to give a five-star service seemed like a funny concept to play with. Luckily for me, Dominic and Dana agreed.”

Ollie has been filmmaking for the past couple of years through production company Caviar. He has directed work for acclaimed artists such as Years & Years, Josef Salvat and French artist Fabich, the latter of which was nominated for Best Dance Video Newcomer for his ‘Hold On’ video at The UK Music Video Awards 2017. He has directed two other short dramas ‘At Dawn’ and ’Heartland’, the latter of which has recently started doing the festival circuit. He has worked with several high profile actors before, but on working with acclaimed director West he said: “I’m a huge fan of The Wire, it was amazing to work Dominic, he brought to life Gary’s character with more pathos and humour than I had ever envisioned when I wrote the script. Dominic and Ken were hilarious in the car together, every time Ken did the line about monkeys licking his balls, Dom cracked up, so that genuine laugh was the one we put in the edit.”

What appealed to the judges about the short, was how it featured a brilliant mix of the epic and the everyday. The epic being a bank robbery, and every day being a ride in the back of a cab.

Being one of the judges and the star of the film, Dominic West commented: “The premise of ‘Five Star Fouad’ immediately grabbed our attention but the more we re-read it the more we appreciated the heart-warming moment of enlightenment that Ollie wrote and how it is delivered from a completely unexpected source."