Page 24 - Fujifilm Exposure_3 Michael Winner_ok

ALAN M TROW BSC MADE IN WALES TONY IMPEY BSC As the The 9th International Welsh Film Festival opens in Aberystwyth, November 14 - 23,
Ceri Thomas reports on a surge of production in the land of his fathers.
Photos from top: Cameleon A Mind To Kill • House Of America Twin Town • Coming Up Roses
Seasoned observers find it difficult to be more than cautiously optimistic about the growth of the Welsh Film industry. And who can blame them? The recent history of Welsh filmmaking is, without doubt, a patchy one. For the last few years, every brief flowering of talent has been followed by a fallow patch before anything blooms again.
In the mid-eighties the critical success of films like Coming Up Roses and Soldier Boy were hailed as the beginning of a brave new dawn. The same thing happened in 1992 when Hedd Wyn bagged an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. Both times success wasn’t really built on and momen- tum dwindled away. Now, with Welsh films popping up on every corner, can we afford optimism?
Yes, we can, because this time things feel different. Growth isn’t just happening in a vacuum this time. The wealth of Welsh technical expertise is finally being put to good use by a generation of filmmakers drawing on the success of Scottish and Irish films for inspiration , and - primarily - on lottery money and the largesse of S4C for funding.
And best of all, they’re light years away from all those How Green Was My Valley cliches of yes- teryear. Twin Town’s tales of drug abuse and theft in Swansea were just the tip of the iceberg. Take Marc Evans’ House Of America, a black account of the bitter dreams of a valley’s family, or Darklands, Julian Richards’ edgy and powerful con- spiracy thriller, for example.
Cameleon, a purely Welsh lan- guage film directed by Ceri Sherlock, would be unrecognisable to those who see the Principality as simply a morass of coal miners, sheep and male voice choirs. Telling the story of an army deserter in South Wales during WWI, it was well received at Cannes in May but is interesting for
more than artistic reasons. Most importantly, it marks a significant change in policy for S4C, the Welsh fourth channel.
Most insiders admit that there would be little technical infrastruc- ture in Wales if S4C wasn’t around to employ crews on big budget dramas like the thriller series A Mind To Kill (the English version of which has been screening recently on C5).
But though it’s been intimately involved in the Welsh film industry since its formation in 1982, the tele- vision company hasn’t actually com- misioned films specifically for the- atrical release. The S4C movies which made it into cinemas may have been produced to a high-quali- ty and shot on film, but they were intended first and foremost to be screened on television first.
Now, though, they’ve decided to try to make two films aimed specifi- cally at theatrical release per year. Cameleon is the first, and the sec- ond Solomon A Gaenor, in conjunc- tion with September Films and using lottery funding, is now well into full production already.
And Wales isn’t just enjoying a resurgence of ‘domestic’ film-mak- ing. Outside film companies are increasingly using the locations, facilities and crews offered by the Principality. The production compa- ny Lluniau Lliw recently teamed up with Yorkshire playwright John Godber’s company Touchdown to bring filming of Up ‘n’ Under (lit by Alan M. Trow) to South Wales, and recently the countryside of Wales has doubled for France, South Africa and Scotland with even a housing estate in the Rhondda valley stand- ing in for Glasgow in PolyGram’s comedy, The James Gang.
Much has been made of Ireland’s ability to attract foreign film crews due to its somewhat attractive tax breaks, but spokespeople for the Cardiff Film Commission argue that it’s cheaper to film in Wales for a lot of companies.
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