'Writers in their Landscape' -Academi's Literary Bus Tours hit the road / Awduron a'u Cynefin: Dewch ar wibdaith lenyddol trwy Gymru

'Writers in their Landscape' -Academi's Literary Bus Tours hit the road

[This article will be of special interest to Welsh Americans and to other tourists traveling in Wales this Spring.]

Dyddiad Rhyddhau: 23 March 2009

Have you ever wanted to spend a day out in the country in the company of a National Poet and an Archdruid? Or fancied visiting the Brecon Beacons in the footsteps of one of Wales' leading literary critics? This is your chance.



Academi is pleased to present a new series of Literary Bus Tours in Wales, focusing on six different writers in their landscape - Waldo Williams, Gillian Clarke, Dic Jones, Roland Mathias, Lewis Jones and Dafydd ap Gwilym. On each trip, we will visit important sites and locations from the writer's life and work, hear readings and recitals and learn from experts about the life and history of the writer.

R.S.Thomas - Welsh Landscape



This series of tours is supported by an Arts Council of Wales Beacon Company Award 2008 - 2010, which Academi was awarded last year. Alongside these tours, which form part of a programme of literary tourism, the Award will enable Academi to enhance the Young People's Writing Squads and successful National Poet initiative.



Whether you fancy spending a day with National Poet Gillian Clarke and Archdruid Dic Jones in Ceredigion, a visit to the Clydach Vale in the footsteps of left-wing writer and political activist Lewis Jones, a trip to Brecon to discover the area that shaped and influenced poet, editor and critic, Roland Mathias, a day in Pembrokeshire where one of Wales leading Welsh-language poets Waldo Williams lived or a journey back in time to discover old and new secrets about legendary medieval writer Dafydd ap Gwilym, this series of literary bus tours offers something for everyone.

Peter Finch Live at the Merlin



Academi's Chief Executive Peter Finch said: "Touring the places associated with writers, where they walked, where they lived, where they created, can be enormously fulfilling. To visit the place that sparked their great works is a privilege. Academi tours are all accompanied by erudite and accessible leaders. Expect to be entertained, enlivened, informed and enthralled."



[Pictured above: In the Spring wild Bluebells grow everywhere in the high places along country roads in Wales. Photography by Dr. Mark Leslie Woods.]

All tours include lunch and coffee breaks at carefully selected venues and tickets are £37.00 per person per tour. Academi hopes that you will not only learn more about the writers in their landscape, but also have fun on these five day trips:

Waldo Williams in Pembrokeshire, Saturday 9 May 2009

Tour leader: Dr Damian Walford Davies

Departure/Arrival point: Carmarthen

Welsh language tour: No English translation provided

Welsh Folk Dancing at The National Eisteddfod, Swansea 2006



Roland Mathias at Talybont-on-Usk, Saturday 13 June 2009

Tour leader: Dr John Pikoulis

Departure/Arrival point: Cardiff

English language tour

Gillian Clarke and Dic Jones in Ceredigion, Saturday 11 July 2009



Tour leaders: Gillian Clarke and Dic Jones

Departure/Arrival point: Aberystwyth

Bilingual tour: English translation provided



Lewis Jones in Clydach Vale, Saturday 19 September 2009

Tour leader: Dr John Pikoulis

Departure/Arrival point: Cardiff

English language tour

Dafydd ap Gwilym in Ceredigion, Saturday 24 October 2009

Tour leader: Dr Huw Meirion Edwards

Departure/Arrival point: Aberystwyth

Welsh language tour: No English translation provided



For full details and a booking form, please visit www.academi.org or contact Academi on 029 2047 2266, post@academi.org

Ends

Notes to Editors

For full programme details please visit: www.academi.org

Arts Council of Wales Beacon Company Award

Academi is a recipient of an Arts Council of Wales Beacon Company Award 2008-2010. This award supports a programme of literary tourism, including this series of bus tours.

In November 2007, the Welsh Assembly Government allocated £4.5m to be used by the Arts Council of Wales to reward companies or individuals who showed innovation and excellence in the arts. It was a privilege for the Academi to receive one of these Beacon Company Awards in October 2008, which secured funding to develop a programme of literary tourism, the Young People's Writing Squads and enhance the successful National Poet initiative.



About Academi

- The Academi works in partnership with Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Llanystumdwy. The Academi works with the support of the Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Assembly Government.

- The Academi is responsible for organising the Wales Book of the Year award, literary events (conferences, dinners, poetry tours, lectures), writers' bursaries, Writing Squads and various support schemes.

- Academi is pleased to be the recipient of an Arts Council of Wales Beacon Company Award 2008 - 2010.

For further information contact Academi:

029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org

www.academi.org


Media Contact

Joanna Davies
Senior Press & Media Officer
Tel: 07817 291512 / 02920 376593
Email:  Joanna[dot]Davies[at]celfcymru[dot]org[dot]uk

Climbing Cader Idris (for a Mountaineer) - Gillian Clarke



Awduron a'u Cynefin: Dewch ar wibdaith lenyddol trwy Gymru

Dyddiad Rhyddhau: 23 Mawrth 2009

Hoffech chi dreulio diwrnod yng nghefn gwlad yng nghwmni Bardd Cenedlaethol ac Archdderwydd? Neu ddilyn ôl troed un o feirniaid llenyddol mwyaf Cymru ar hyd Bannau Brycheiniog? Dyma'ch cyfle.


Mae'n bleser gan yr Academi gyflwyno cyfres o Wibdeithau Llenyddol yn seiliedig ar chwe awdur gwahanol yn eu cynefin - Waldo Williams, Gillian Clarke, Dic Jones, Roland Mathias, Lewis Jones a Dafydd ap Gwilym. Bydd y gwibdeithiau'n cynnwys ymweliadau â lleoliadau pwysig ym mywyd a gwaith yr awduron, darlleniadau a chyfle i ddysgu mwy am yr awduron gan arbenigwyr.



[Pictured above: Bright, yellow Gorse grows wild in the high places along country roads in Wales. Photography by Dr. Mark Leslie Woods.]

Boed yn ddiwrnod yng Ngheredigion gyda'r Bardd Cenedlaethol Gillian Clarke a'r Archdderwydd Dic Jones, ymweliad â Chwm Clydach a dilyn ôl troed yr awdur adain-chwith Lewis Jones, ymweld ag ardal Waldo Williams, un o feirdd mwyaf blaenllaw y Gymraeg neu fentro nôl i'r Canol Oesoedd i glywed cyfrinachau hen a newydd am y bardd enwog Dafydd ap Gwilym, mae'r Academi'n gobeithio fod y gyfres hon o wibdeithiau yn cynnig rhywbeth at ddant pawb.

Medley of Welsh Folk Tunes - Improvised



Derbyniodd yr Academi Wobr Cwmni Disglair gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru 2008-2010 a defnyddir y wobr i gefnogi'r gwibdeithiau hyn, fel rhan o'n cynllun twristiaeth lenyddol. Defnyddir y nawdd hefyd i hybu cynllun y Bardd Cenedlaethol a Sgwadiau `Sgwennu'r Ifainc.

Dywed Peter Finch, Prif Weithredwr yr Academi: "Mae ymweld â llefydd sy'n gysylltiedig ag awduron - y llefydd ble buont yn cerdded, yn byw, yn creu - yn gallu bod yn hynod foddhaus. Mae'n fraint ymweld â'r llefydd a daniodd eu gweithiau mawr. Arweinir gwibdeithiau'r Academi gan dywyswyr gwybodus. Paratowch am deithiau bywiog, cynhwysfawr a difyr. "



Mae pob gwibdaith yn cynnwys cinio a seibiannau coffi mewn lleoliadau arbennig a chost tocyn ar gyfer un wibdaith fydd £37. Mae'r Academi'n gobeithio y byddwch yn dysgu mwy am yr awduron ac yn cael diwrnod i'r brenin:

Waldo Williams yn Sir Benfro, Sadwrn 9 Mai 2009

Arweinydd y daith: Dr Damian Walford Davies
Man Cychwyn/Gorffen: Caerfyrddin

Gwibdaith trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg: Ni ddarperir cyfieithiad Saesneg

Roland Mathias yn Nhal-y-bont ar Wysg, Sadwrn 13 Mehefin 2009

Arweinydd y daith: Dr John Pikoulis
Man Cychwyn/Gorffen: Caerdydd

Gwibdaith trwy gyfrwng y Saesneg



Gillian Clarke a Dic Jones yng Ngheredigion, Sadwrn 11 Gorffennaf 2009

Arweinydd y daith: Gillian Clarke a Dic Jones

Man Cychwyn/Gorffen: Aberystwyth

Gwibdaith ddwyieithog: Darperir cyfieithiad Saesneg

Lewis Jones yng Nghwm Clydach, Sadwrn 19 Medi 2009
Arweinydd y daith: Dr John Pikoulis

Man Cychwyn/Gorffen: Caerdydd

Gwibdaith trwy gyfrwng y Saesneg

Dafydd ap Gwilym yng Ngheredigion, Sadwrn 24 Hydref 2009
Arweinydd y daith: Dr Huw Meirion Edwards

Man Cychwyn/Gorffen: Aberystwyth

Gwibdaith trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg: Ni ddarperir cyfieithiad Saesneg

Am ragor o wybodaeth a ffurflen archebu, ewch i www.academi.org neu cysylltwch â ni ar 029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org

Diwedd

Nodiadau i'r Golygydd

Am raglen lawn ewch ar: www.academi.org

Wales: The National Eisteddfod (1) The Gorsedd Prayer



Dyfarniad Cwmni Disglair Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru

Derbyniodd yr Academi Wobr Cwmni Disglair gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru 2008-2010 a defnyddir y wobr i gefnogi'r gwibdeithiau hyn, fel rhan o'n cynllun twristiaeth lenyddol.

Cyhoeddodd Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru ym mis Tachwedd 2007 y byddai cronfa o £4.5m yn cael ei chreu i'w ddefnyddio gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru i wobrwyo cwmnïau neu unigolion a ddangosai flaengarwch a rhagoriaeth ym myd y celfyddydau. Braint felly i'r Academi oedd derbyn Dyfarniad Cwmni Disglair fis Hydref 2008, a sicrhaodd nawdd i ddatblygu'r cynllun Twristiaeth Lenyddol, Sgwadiau `Sgwennu'r Ifainc a chynllun llwyddianus y Bardd Cenedlaethol.

Yr Academi

Derbyniodd yr Academi Wobr Cwmni Disglair gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru 2008-2010.

Am ragor o wybodaeth, cysylltwch â'r Academi:

029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org

www.academi.org



Mae'r Academi yn gweithio mewn partneriaeth â Thŷ Newydd


Cyswllt a'r Cyfryngau

Joanna Davies
Uwch Swyddog y Wasg a'r Cyfryngau
Ffôn: 07817 291512 / 02920 376593
Ebost: Joanna[dot]Davies[at]celfcymru[dot]org[dot]uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Study Abroad in Britain, Europe and the U.S.A. / Canada Website.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Adoration of Beauty and the Grotesque, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called William Blake Spirituality: Toward a Theory of Horoscopes, Tarot and Tomorrow's Tea Leaves, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Courage 2 Create, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Grace-filled Empty Spaces, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2009 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Audiences Get Free Admission at 'Stranger Than Fiction' Documentary Film Festival in Newport, Wales March 13-14 2008

STRANGER THAN FICTION WALES

The Skillset Screen Academy Wales is co-ordinating a new FREE documentary festival in March (13th and 14th) at the Riverfront Arts Centre, Newport.



To book tickets call the Riverfront on (01633) 656757

Stranger than Fiction Wales Programme
Thursday - 13/3/2008
The Studio
Riverfront Arts Centre

18.30 - 20.00
Jennings Finest Hour
(A BFI Presentation)

20.00 - 22.00
Bardsey, Senghennydd, Tiger Bay and Pill
(A National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales Presentation)



Friday - 14/3/2008
The Studio
Riverfront Arts Centre

13.00 - 15.00
Black Film Festival Wales Docs
Q&A with guests to follow screening



15.00 - 16.00
Screening of award-winning graduate and student productions

16.00 - 17.30
FourDocs Screening and discussion



18.00 - 19.15
Jennings and Rotha
(A BFI Presentation)

19.30 - 21.00
Anstey, Clarke and Grierson on film
(A BFI Presentation)



21.00 - 22.30
Closing Reception sponsored by the Film Agency for Wales
RSVP here to request a ticket for the reception which is open to anyone who has attended a screening over the two days.



Staff at Stranger than Fiction Wales:

Festival Manager: Hannah Raybould
Festival Coordinator: Matthew Evans
Festival Programmers: Humphry Trevelyan & Matthew Evans
Guest Liaison: Matthew Evans
Design: Sian Crandon, University of Wales, Newport
Marketing/PR: Hannah Raybould & Rebecca Froggatt
Translations: Owen Martell
Volunteers: SSAW students and students of BA Documentary at IFSW

Hill of Dreams -- Best Documentary at the International Film School Awards 2005





Thanks to:

Dan Thomas at the Film Agency for Wales; Clare Harwood at the BFI; Undeg Griffiths and Iestyn Hughes at the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales; Yvonne Connickie at the Black Welsh Film Festival; Rebecca Franckel at FourDocs; Lisa Nesbitt at BAFTA Cymru; Chris Morris at the International Film School Wales.

Read more about the Skillset Wales Screen Academy Documentary Film Festical Here

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Celtic Youth Film 'Hip Hedonism' and Justin Kerrigan According to Martin McLoone and Steve Blandford

Justin Kerrigan is shooting a new Welsh film in South Wales, and he's best known worldwide for his 'global youth party culture' film Human Traffic, set in Cardiff, Wales.


[Pictured above: Emmy nominee Robert Carlyle stars in Justin Kerrigan's newest film currently being shoot in South Wales.]

Emmy nominee Robert Carlyle, who found fame in 'The Full Monty' and 'Trainspotting' and whose credits have since included 'Carla's Song', 'The World is Not Enough' and '28 weeks later' is currently filming Cardiff born, Justin Kerrigan's new feature film 'I Know you Know' in Bridgend, and Port Talbot.

Kerrigan is often lumped together with similar directors who seem to be exploiting this transnational popular culture craze, making films that are loaded with codes and signifiers that 'only the kids' can understand.

Kerrigan is best known for his 1999 hit 'Human Traffic' for which, amidst several other awards, he won a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Director and was nominated for a Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTA 2000 awards in London.

Human Traffic Trailer -- Miramax Films



How does Kerrigan fit into the pantheon of Welsh filmmakers who have overcome the odds to make a film and get it out of Wales?

How does Kerrigan fit into the array of recent 'Celtic Periphery' filmmakers, i.e., coming out of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales?

The Twang - Two Lovers -- Also directed by Justin Kerrigan




I've written about this elsewhere, and I include this excerpt of my new book on the National Cinema of Wales (not yet published) called, 'A Welsh New Wave?'

A Welsh ‘new wave’?

Blandford notes that the quartet he is describing created rumours of the beginnings of a new Welsh film ‘wave’ of production and freer expression, while they managed to offend the government, the tourist boards, the local communities where the films were shot, the Welsh religious establishment, and just about everyone else inclined to be offended.



Blandford alludes to a general weariness in Welsh society, surrounding the cultural controversy, and longs for a respite from the ‘dead-end arguments’

"During the next decade it will be interesting to see whether a film culture develops with the confidence to make films without even the ironic reference to traditional Welsh iconography that this latest wave has made" (Blandford 2000: 20)



Blandford seems to perceive that this ‘wave’ is related to a larger cultural malaise within a post-modern British and trans-national milieu, as he compares the quartet of Welsh films to similar films set in Scotland, Trainspotting (1996) and Wickerman (1973).



Martin McLoone identifies the same type of films becoming popular in the emerging economic and cultural ‘Celtic Tiger’ ascendancy of Ireland, and coins the name ‘hip hedonism’ to describe and explain the film waves’ meaning and impetus

"This might well explain the preponderance, in recent years, of another kind of urban-based film — what might be called a cinema of ‘hip hedonism’. This is a cinema that celebrates, even glorifies, an urban lifestyle dressed in the signifiers of contemporary global youth culture and populated by the beautiful people of Celtic Tiger Ireland" (McLoone 2006: 97)



Ruth Barton frames the films of post World War II Ireland in a chapter entitled ‘Negotiating Modernism’ (Barton 2004: 65), and one has to wonder if in some way, McLoone and Blandford are not describing Irish and Welsh cinemas, respectively, which are representing a new generation’s negotiation with the problems of trans-national post-modernism, including the paradox of rapidly rising incomes of younger professionals in Cardiff and Dublin paralleling the fatalism and political detachment implicit in the music and lifestyles of the nightclub, pub and ‘Rave Culture’, and its various cultural cousins.



Either way, the films of Scotland, Ireland and Wales in this period seem to be tapping the same vein of ‘I can’t be bothered’ attitudes endemic to the Celtic up-and-coming

"They are Irish, certainly, but they epitomize a kind of trans-global ‘cool’. Drugs and crime still form part of the background, but they are presented as lifestyle choices or get-rich schemes removed from any social consequences."



"Most importantly, these films are lighter in tone than the more political films, as well as being driven by a deliberately irreverent humour" (McLoone 2006: 97).



In the quartet of Welsh films that Blandford describes, which we will assert form the backbone of a Welsh version of McLoone’s designated Irish cinema of ‘hip hedonism,’ we need to ask what values are being challenged, and what social and cultural tensions are being transgressed or offended, and what possible meaning this might have.

Barton, R. (2004). Irish National Cinema. London, Routledge.

Berry, D. (1994). Wales and Cinema, The First Hundred Years. Cardiff, University of Wales Press.



Blandford, S., Ed. (2000). Wales on Screen. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Blandford, S. (2003). “Old Wales is Dead”, Film, Theatre and TV Drama in Contemporary Wales.” New Welsh Review, Theatre in Wales Supplement Autumn.

Blandford, S. (2003a). “Film, Theatre, and TV Drama in Contemporary Wales.” Culture+the State James Gifford & Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux, Editors (Culture+State Conference, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).



Blandford, S. (2005). Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain. Inaugural Professorial Lecture, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Wales, University of Glamorgan.

Blandford, S. (2005a). “Wales at the Oscars: ‘heritage’ cinema and Welshness in the 1990s.” Cyfrwng: Wales Media Journal 2.



Blandford, S. (2005b). Dramatic Fictions in a Postcolonial Wales. Postcolonial Wales. J. Aaron and C. Williams. Cardiff, University of Wales Press.

Blandford, S. (2007). Film, Drama and the Break Up of Britain. Bristol, England, Intellect Books.

Blandford, S., B. K. Grant, et al. (2001). The Film Studies Dictionary. London and New York, Arnold Publishers and Oxford University Press.



Hannan, P. (1999). The Welsh Illusion. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.

Hannan, P. (2002). 2001, A Year in Wales. Bridgend, Wales, Seren, Poetry Wales Press Ltd.



McLoone, M. (2001). ‘Internal Decolonisation? British Cinema in the Celtic Fringe.’ The British Cinema Book. R. Murphy.

McLoone, M. (2006). National Cinema in Ireland. Theorising National Cinema. V. Vitali and P. Willemen. London, British Film Institute: 88-99.



The Phrase Hip Hedonism was coined by Martin McLoone. Read more about his newest work here:


Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland
Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes
by Martin McLoone



This collection of essays from Martin McLoone takes a new look at
contemporary culture in Ireland through the filter of three main
developments – the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in the South, the peace
process in the North and the general rise in Ireland of ‘diasporan
awareness’.



The book considers the impact of these three factors on
the film, television, and music produced in Ireland, mostly since the
1990s, and speculates on how this popular culture reflects both what
has been gained in the new Ireland but also what has been lost.



Specific concerns of the book are the secularisation of Ireland and
popular culture’s assault on the Church generally (and the priest in
particular); the changing cityscapes and landscapes of the new Ireland;

the ‘death’ of politics; sexual freedom and personal liberation; the problem of representing unionist culture in the North; Van Morrison’s Belfast and the rise of ‘possessive individualism’ in Ireland.



The book celebrates the new Ireland but also raises issues about the loss of aspects of Irish identity that were valuable and suggests the need for a new ‘collective imaginary’ that might reinvigorate Irish identity in the new millennium.

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Hollywood Is Watching: Iris Prize Short Film Awards Brings International Spotlight to Cardiff Arts Scene October 4-7

'Iris Prize' comes to Cardiff, with £25,000 up for grabs for the winner of the best short film.

Pictured above: K & Nelson kiss in the short film 'K': Director: Juan Martin Simons
Country of Origin: Spain
Category: Shorts
Cast: Miguel Ángel Jiménez & Álex Quiroga
Date of Film: 2005

You can cast your vote at the viewings. Plus from Thursday to Sunday, Chapter Cinema and Cineworld will be packed with a feast of feature films, specially brought in by the Iris Prize:

Thursday 4th October 2007
16.00 Shorts Programme 1 -Chapter -£4.00 (£3.50)
19.00 Shorts Programme 2 -Cineworld-£4.00 (£3.50)
20.30 The Bubble -Cineworld - £5.00 (£4.00)

14.30 - Writer's forum @ Chapter
- with Cath Treganna (writer of Torchwood), David Llewellyn and Brent Gorski. FREE

Friday 5th October 2007
12.30 Shorts Programme 3 -Chapter -£4.00 (£3.50)
18.00 The Bubble -Cineworld - £5.00 (£4.00)
19.00 Shorts Programme 4 -Chapter-£4.00 (£3.50)
20.30 Holding Trevor -Chapter- £5.00 (£4.00)
22.15 The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror-Cineworld£5.00 (£4.00)

11.00 Producer’s Forum - Chapter - FREE discussion

Saturday 6th October 2007
19.00 Fel Arall -Cineworld- £5.00 (£4.00)
18.00 One Two Another -Chapter- £5.00 (£4.00)
17.00 Tick Tock Lullaby -Cineworld- £5.00 (£4.00)
14.30 The Picture of Dorian Gray -Chapter- £5.00 (£4.00)

21.00 Iris Prize Awards Evening -Cineworld

Plus also on this week:
Bobby Conn plays Clwb Ifor Bach on Thursday 4th October 8pm - £7

http://www.myspace.com/bobbyconn

Anthony Shapland's 'Suddenly After A Long Silence' excellent 'staged' CCTV and documentary film installations are showing in Chapter's Gallery - FREE



IRIS PRIZE 'SPECIAL OFFER' PRICES:

Special Offers - Unfortunately, the below offers are not available online. Please go to Chapter or call the box office. 029 2030 4400

5 tickets for the price of 2!
See all 30 of the short films competing for the 2007 Iris Prize for £8.00 (£7.00). All you need to do is buy two tickets for separate programmes and you’ll receive tickets for the other programmes for free!

3 films for the price of 2
Pay for 2 separate features films in one transaction and you’ll receive a free ticket to any other feature film of your choice.

The Iris Prize Festival 4 - 6 October 2007

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

IN MEMORIA: Wales Mourns the Untimely Loss of Important Media Scholar Dr. James Thomas

PICTURED ABOVE: DR. JAMES THOMAS

According to the Cardiff University School of Journalism Media and Cultural Studies web site:

"James Thomas died suddenly last weekend."

"He is, and will be, sadly missed by all his present and past students and by all of those who have worked with him over the years."

"The school offers its sincere condolences to James's family and friends during this difficult time."

"Terry Threadgold, Head of School"

Visit the James Thomas memorial site here.

James's is well known for his pivotal role in the development of the Welsh Media Journal Cyfrwng.

His research interests included Media History, History in the Media, Public and Media Mourning, British Politics and the Media, Welsh Media, Media and Monarchy, Media Power.

His articles and books spanned from explorations of anti-Welsh attitudes in the media to 'The Case for a Bi-lingual S4C'.

Many of his dear friends and students and colleagues are in a state of shock.

A special memorial page has been setup on Face Book and has this recent news:

FaceBook Group Info Name: Remembering James Thomas

Description: A group to remember the wonderful James Thomas, who has passed away much too early. We wanted to create an informal place where his friends, colleagues and students can remember him -- please post your memories, pictures, thoughts or anything else...

Recent News:

Dr James Thomas just passed away. He died suddenly, in his sleep, from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The funeral will be this Friday, 24th August, at 10.15 am in St. Andrew's Church, Tonypandy and the burial will follow at 11am at Treorchy Cemetery.

Any cards can be given to Mr Huw Thomas in the JOMEC main office. He will ensure that they are passed on to the family.

JOMEC has set up a memorial website:

Chttp://journalism.cf.ac.uk/JamesThomas/index.php

I thought James was especially kind and helpful to patiently give me advice last year about completing my dissertation.

He went out of his way to encourage me and to offer some guidance, even though I was from a different institution.

This is certainly tragic and sad news, and our hearts go out to his family, students, colleagues and friends.

He will be missed.

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Why Do Many Small Nations 'Specialize' in Film Adaptations?

It has been estimated that an overwhelming percentage of Welsh films and television dramas are intentionally based upon other literary sources.

This overwhelming dependence upon literary adaptation is primarily from important Welsh literary or cultural sources. This suggests an attempt to ‘recall and recollect’ and to re-‘write the nation’, after a period of suppressed or neglected representations of Welsh-ness.

While Dave Berry’s book and other studies have attributed this Welsh dependence upon literary adaptation as ‘laziness’ (Berry 1994: 234), we see it as being related to issues of post-colonial ‘re-telling’ of a national story, or more related to the economics of production.



For example, Stephen Bayly directed Joni Jones (1982) as a well-received television series for S4C, an adaptation based upon the well-known children’s stories by R. Garallt Jones entitled Gwared y Gwirion or ‘Redemption of the Innocents’.

It is often the case in Wales, that directors will create a series which is actually suited to be converted into a feature film at a later date, should the funding and political will be present to effect the re-formatting.

Additionally, one of Wales's most famous sons is Andrew Davies, who is known around the world as the 'Prince of Adaptation'.

Andrew Wynford Davies (born September 20, 1936 in Rhiwbina, Cardiff, Wales) is a British screenwriter.

He is the creator of the children's Marmalade Atkins television series and A Very Peculiar Practice, and is also well known for his adaptations of classic works of literature, including the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and the 1998 adaptation of Vanity Fair.



Literary and stage adaptations have added clout with film production investors, who assume that a successful novel or stage play will naturally make a successful film.

Some screenwriters have been known to 'invent' a novel AFTER writing a film script, for purposes of marketing the film, and for raising venture capital.

In small nations, broadcasting drama department Commissioning Editors often opt for an adaptation. This satisfies several remits: nationalistic and cultural agendas are fulfilled, while it's assumed that an established audience exists for the new film or TV series.

My favorite book on film and literature in general is Tom Corrigan's 'Film & Literature' (1999, Prentic Hall Inc / Simon & Schuster).

Here's a pleasant Youtube tribute to Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice:









'Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature' (Paperback) by John Desmond (Author), Peter Hawkes (Author) is concise and readable new text for courses in Film Adaptation or Film and Literature introduces students to the art of adapting works of literature for film.

'Adaptation' describes the interwoven histories of literature and film, presents key analytical approaches to adaptation, and provides an in-depth overview of adaptations of novels, short stories, plays, nonfiction, and animation.

The book concludes with an analysis of why adaptations sometimes fail.



mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

European Scholars' Debate: Is Wales Postcolonial or Post-National, or both?

Is Wales Postcolonial? Scholars continue to debate this issue, and there are some very entrenched and opposing views:

Welsh historian Geraint H. Jenkins tells us,

"Some historians have simply presumed that the political assimilation of Wales by England necessarily meant that the history of this ‘internal colony’ was no more than a tranquil and uneventful interlude between the rebellions of the fifteenth century and the epoch-making industrial revolution." (Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing Ltd. 2001: 74)

Describing Wales as an ‘internal colony’ of England during this or any period, or variously describing Wales as colony/former colony/neo-colony, etc. of England, raises the question as to whether postcolonial theory is applicable in the case of Wales, which is not without controversy.

'Postcolonial Wales' is a collection of edited essays derived from a one day conference “exploring aspects of contemporary Welsh cultural & political life from 'Postcolonial' theoretical and critical perspectives” considered this question on 13 July 2002 at the University of Glamorgan, Wales, and the papers from this conference address the question in a recently published book, edited by Jane Aaron and Chris Williams.

Media scholars tend to see Wales, at least as far as film and media are concerned, in some state of colonial or post-colonial status:

In his new book 'Film, Television and the Break Up of Britain' Professor Steve Blandford has asserted that, while some areas of governance of newly-devolved Wales have achieved a certain level of independence from England, i.e., ‘postcolonial Wales’, Welsh film and television are still subject to residual colonial controls based in London (Aaron and Williams 2005: 191; Blandford 2007: 91).

Professor Dave Barlow (in the recent book, 'The Media in Wales: Voices of a Small Nation' which he co-authored with Philip Mitchell, and Tom O'Malley) confirms that this continuing monopoly of news and copy-righted-entertainment production and marketing in Wales by England and Hollywood is pervasive not only in film and television, but extends throughout other media (Barlow, Mitchell et al. 2005: 34).

Swedish scholar Dr. Johan Schimanski,

an Associate Professor from the Norwegian Universitetet i Tromsø, and former Visiting Professor of Border Studies at the Centre for Border Studies at the University of Glamorgan, has compared post-colonial Norway to post-colonial Wales in his lecture entitled:

Cultural and Political Nationalism in Wales

Johan Schimanski writes:

"Like post-colonial Norway, post-colonial Wales has no aristocracy of its own. I mention this right at the end of my talk to give a hint of what is to come."

"The rise of a Welsh-speaking middle-class has lent prestige to the Welsh language, and has, with the help of the new Welsh-language media and education establishment moved the focal point of Welsh-language culture away from Y Fro Gymraeg - where Welsh-speakers top in percentages of local populations - and to the great cities of Swansea and Cardiff - where Welsh-speakers top in absolute numbers per square kilometre [Aitchinson 1994:91,94]."

"The tensions involved in this hardly expected turn in what we might call the ongoing crisis of representation in the Welsh nation must continue or be resolved, perhaps at some point providing new figurations of the gap between cultural and political borders."

Schimanski, Johan. "Cultural and Political Nationalism in Wales". In Nationalism in Small European Nations ("KULTs skriftserie"). Ed. Øystein Sørensen. Oslo: The Research Council of Norway, 1996.

We recommend both books, by scholars David M. Barlow, Philip Mitchell, and Tom O'Malley, and the collection edited by scholars Jane Aaron and Chris Williams.

Here's the published synopsis of Postcolonial Wales:

"Postcolonial Wales, edited by Jane Aaron and Chris Williams, is collection of essays that uses questions, hypotheses and concepts drawn from postcolonial theory to understand the culture and politics of post-devolution Wales."

"Beginning with discussions of how Wales as a nation has been understood historiographically, as well as historically, the book focuses in the next section on society and politics in post-devolution Wales. "

"The final section of the volume considers Welsh cultural difference in terms of literature, the mass media, music, drama and the visual arts. Flexible in approach and diverse in their approaches, each contribution aims to stimulate ideas and suggest new ways of thinking about contemporary Wales."

Zoë Brigley, a Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Warwick in her post entitled,

Chris Williams: ‘Problematizing Wales: An Exploration in Historiography and Postcoloniality’

writes:

"In this essay, Williams begins by rejecting any models of Wales as a post-colonial nation, but he does embrace aspects of postcolonial theory such as ‘ambivalence, hybridity and post-nationality’ which might be useful in considering Wales as a marginal region (13)."

"William sees ambivalence as bound up with Wales’ complicity with the English and British. There is also hybridity in the ‘migration, settlement and intermarriage’ in Wales: what Williams calls ‘Wales’ “fuzzy borders” and its long inheritance of multicultural experiences, if not of multiculturalism’ (14). "

"Williams is adamant that hybridity has often been ignored by critics and commentators in Wales, yet possibilities might be found in the view of selfhood that defines postcolonial theory."

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Friday/Gwener -- Film-lovers' Forum Followed by Gala Premiere: Welsh and British Film Expert Steve Blandford Tonight at Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre

Pictured right: Professor Steve Blandford, Associate Dean of Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, is an expert in British film and television.

Professor Blandford will discuss his new book, 'Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain' at tonight's film event at Chapter Arts Centre.

Special Film Event: Screening of the new film, 'This is England' plus a talk by Professor Steve Blandford (18)

Buy Tickets Now from the Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Friday, 29 June 2007 20:15 Cinema 1
Fri 29 June / Gwener 29 Mehefin

UK/2006/100 mins/18. Dir: Shane Meadows. With Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley.

Shane Meadows’ most accomplished film to date is set in 1983, and focuses on a lonely 12-year-old who runs into a group of skinheads, but finds himself drawn into more uncomfortable territory when an older, overtly racist gang member is released from prison.

This screening will be preceded by a 30-minute talk on current British cinema by Steve Blandford, professor of theatre and media and associate dean of the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Glamorgan, and author of the new book 'Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain'.



Critics say that 'This is England' is "fizzing with energy and humour, powered by brilliantly engaging performances" -

BBCi

www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Sexy Welsh God Again Tops America's Summer Weekend Hollywood Boxoffice

Pictured above: Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, star of the Fantastic Four (2007)

Welsh actors dominate as Hollywood's Libido Lifeblood for four decades . . .

Is there ever a time when the 'Land of Song' doesn't dominate and control the starring roles of Hollywood?

Ifor Novello, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Bale, Siân Phillips, Emlyn Williams, Catherine Zeta Jones -- I'm running out of breath!

And now Ioan Gruffudd's sexy comic book character is 'stretching' across America!

According to the Hollywood Reporter

'Fantastic Four' scores with $57.4 million debut weekend
By Gregg Kilday
June 18, 2007

"20th Century Fox's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" rode a commanding wave to the top of the North American boxoffice during the weekend, finding a broad-based audience with the help of a family-friendly PG rating."

"The original "Fantastic Four," with a PG-13 rating, opened to $56.1 million in 2005, and its sequel didn't lose any momentum and outgrossed its predecessor with an estimated bow of $57.4 million."

Didn't anyone see Ioan Gruffudd speaking Welsh on the Graham Norton Show a couple months ago?

More on the sexy Welshman later . . .

Here's one for your summer reading list: Professor Peter Stead's "Acting Wales, Stars of Stage & Screen" (2002) University of Wales Press.



Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

The Future of Welsh Rugby Part I: Nude Ohio 'Babes' and Naked Frenchmen

Pictured above: Agustin Pichot from 'Gods of the Stadium' French Rugby calendar 2004; The semi-nude women's rugby calendar that led to upset in the Maori community; Ohio Oberlin naked 'babes' crouched in a scrum.

[Welsh Rugby, Coal Miners and Male Choirs -- all sacred symbols of national identity? This is Part I of an article which examines the mythos of iconic athletic maleness in Wales.]

Much has been written about the importance of rugby in Welsh society, as part of the construction of masculinity for a post-industrial society.

Now the icon of the rough, scruffy, muddy-faced rugby male is being exploited and challenged.

David Beckham has turned the male footballer into a male object of desire, first plastered on walls in Paris and Milan, and soon to be exploited by Hollywood.

Is this the future of rugby in Wales?

And what does the apparent morphing of Welsh Male Rugby Icon into a male sex object have to say about modern Welsh nationalism?

For example, a French male rugby team's members have been producing a calendar for several years, which was first a run-away best seller with the worldwide female 'Play Girl' audiences.

The calendar is called the 'Gods of the Stadium' or 'Dieux de Stade' in French.

Seduced by their success the French rugby players have intentionally enlarged their appeal by filming two years of DVD documentaries called the 'Making of Gods of the Stadium'.

This has catapulted the French male rugby players to international stardom, mostly because of their popularity with gay men in North America.

Not to be out-done, women at Oberlin College in Ohio have been making their own rugby calendar for several years.

(Oberlin College is famous as being the small, liberal arts college in the U.S. which graduates the highest percentage of students who go on to finish Ph.D.s)

Rugby is important to the construction of the Welsh male identity, and has reached iconic statue, mostly carried by the unexpected commercial success of a film by BBC director John Hefin called 'Grand Slam (1978)'.

'Grand Slam (1978)'.

According to a synopsis written by Reece Lloyd for IMDB:

"A group of Welsh rugby fans go over to see Wales play France in the final match of the Six Nations rugby tournament. Caradog Evans (Oscar-winner Hugh Griffith) goes there also to seek an old flame from his wartime combat in the 1940s."

"His son, finds a love in Paris too. Contains very frequent nudity, some bad language, and brief violence."

In Welsh academic circles, a discourse about the shattering of the traditionally male and iconic identity of the rugby player, has been developing over time.

This specifically Welsh, filmic and gendered discourse has only just started, with the Cyfrwng Welsh Media Journal’s examination of Welsh masculinity in Stanley Baker’s ‘Welsh Western’, Zulu (1964) (Cyfrwng Journal -- Shail 2002: 11-25), and in Peter Jachimiak’s examination the Welsh film Grand Slam (1978) (Cyfrwng Journal -- Jachimiak 2006: 91-106).

John Hefin produced for the BBC, Grand Slam (1978).

Grand Slam has been called the ultimate Welsh 'Lads' video, and is celebrating its 30th anniversary with brisk DVD sales continuing unabated.

Many Welsh female partners tell stories about their husbands 'stocking up the house for the weekend with cider and sarnies', and then inviting a crowd of men over to watch Grand Slam 'several times in one weekend' -- almost like some modern, Welsh male tribal bonding ceremony -- a Welsh male rite-of-passage that re-affirms Welsh heterosexual maleness, while it reinforces a Welsh national and individual sense of 'Welsh Identity'.

Grand Slam is among the best-known Welsh films with domestic audiences, and holds an iconic place in Welsh history and culture Grand Slam (directed by John Hefin, 1978) is not only a film of Welsh origin primarily aimed at a Welsh audience, but – in relation to the reproduction of Welshness and Welsh masculinity in particular – is often seen as a celebratory cultural event (Jachimiak 2006: 91).

Jachimiak’s analysis and conclusions about Grand Slam are built upon some the same generalizations about constructions of masculinity described by John Beynon in his recent book on 'Masculinities', upon some specifically British imperial / post-imperial constructions described by Canadian scholar Christopher Gittings, and upon some specifically Welsh constructions, as described by Welsh scholars Charlotte Aull Davies and Stephanie Jones:

"I believe that in Blaengwyn, masculine identity formerly associated with mining in the community has been transmuted into a masculinity expressed through playing and supporting rugby, the identification of the rugby sport of Wales" (Jones and Davies 2003: 27).

Cyfrwng Welsh Media Journal Online

We mentioned the possibility of seeing in these Welsh films, evidence of a trajectory, revealing an evolution in the ways in which sexuality and gender are treated.

This trajectory might parallel or inform another longer trajectory of Welsh masculinity, as it relates to and constructs a sense of Welsh nationalism.

For example, Davies and Jones noted above, their theory that the fiercely independent and proudly autonomous coal miner, (which was a long held construction of Welsh masculinity, which has come to symbolize Welsh nationalism and historic degrees Welsh political and economic independence), and has since morphed into the activities and male-centric mythos of rugby.

So we have Frenchmen appealing to their gay audience with videos and posters on E-Bay, and even women in New Zealand have stripped off their rugby jerseys for charity.

The New Zealand women went too far, and offended native national identity:

According to the BBC:

"An English women's rugby team caused upset in New Zealand's Maori community when their fund-raising calendar included a picture of a topless haka. The team said the image was based on the ceremonial war dance but they did not mean to offend, and apologised."

Read about the semi-nude Oberlin College women who play rugby here in the Oberlin Review

According to an article in the Oberlin Review, the mission of the female rugby players was to challenge the 'male myth' of what constitutes 'female beauty':

"Part of this statement (which is on the cover of the calendar) disassociates the rugby calendar from stereotypical Playboy calendars:

“In a society that brands female competitive sports athletes as masculine, this calendar parodies the standard beauty myth, by juxtaposing the concept of the seductive and submissive pinup with images of women who assert themselves not only as strong athletes, but also as empowered women.”

The Oberlin women are intentionally shattering the myths around male-dominated rugby, and perceptions of women in sports. But what does this do to the traditional Welsh icon of maleness, wrapped in male rugby jersey (or now, shirtless men in France)?

Some men in Wales might be asking, "Is nothing sacred?"

Others might ask, "What could be next? Gay Welsh Rugby?" More in Part II . . .

Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Who's Your favorite Welsh filmmaker?

Who's Your favorite Welsh filmmaker?

Is it Justin Kerrigan, director of Human Traffic (1999)?

[Summary: Bad boys in Cardiff get loaded and the kids have irreverent, outrageous fun. Sex is important to the plot.]

Is it Kevin Allen, director of Twin Town (1997)?

[Summary: Bad boys in Swansea get loaded and the kids have irreverent, outrageous fun. Sex is important to the plot.]

Do you like to get together 'dros y penwthynos' with your mates, tip a few pints, while you watch, for the 200th time, director John Hefin's film about Welsh Rubgy, Grand Slam (1978)?

[Summary: Bad boys from West Wales get loaded, go to Paris, and make some irreverent, outrageous fun. Sex is important to the plot.]

Or do you like the darker side of life? Perhaps you prefer Julian Richards horror film Darklands (1996)?

[Summary; Bad boys from Barry get Satanic-religious loaded, and have some bloody, good old time pagan fun. Rowena King makes sex important here, too.]

Or maybe you prefer a more 'historical film', which exploits the Welsh Valley's dysfunctional heritage of post-industrial malaise, casual incest, petty crime, pit violence, and putting your Welsh Mam in the nuthouse? Marc Evans's House of America (1997) ticks every box for the modern Cymreig cinephile.

[Summary: Bad boys from Merthyr get loaded, get beat up, ride motorcycles, and tell the world to bugger off. Sex is important here, especially sex with your sister.]

Tell our readers your favorite Welsh film of all time, or your favorite Welsh 'auteur' filmmaker, okay?

Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

The Welsh and New York's Ellis Island -- Take your mini-cam!

Looking for your Welsh cousins in America?

Visit the New World Celts website!

In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, legend tells us that Ellis Island was named for a Welsh pub owner who gave the Island his name!

Fancy a quick trip to the States while the dollar is still so low against the pound? Why not make your own amateur Welsh home movie, and share it with the world?

This is a perfect year to visit New York City, and while you're there, check out the Welsh history at Ellis Island. There's an electronic board where you can select 'Welsh' to see where all the Welsh immigrants to America are living today -- pretty cool!

Take a Welsh flag and a mini-cam along, and take some video or photos of you and your mates in front of Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, The statue of Liberty, etc., and we'll post the streaming video here in the Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium at the end of the summer, just for fun!

Zoom Airlines now has cheap charter flights, non-stop Cardiff to Toronto. Spend a night in Toronto and visit the Welsh Speaking Canadian Chapel, celebrating their 100th Anniversary this summer with lots of festivities!

I suggest you get the Canadian Trains/Amtrak train from Toronto to New York City -- the scenic travel across New York State is worth the time and price! Either go to Montreal first, and then travel south along the Hudson River, or take the train past Niagara Falls and then via Buffalo to NYC.

Visit Zoom Airlines Here.

George Bush is bringing Ellis Island into the news again, with the Immigration Reform Bill that he's trying to pass. He's a lame duck, and the bill is flawed, but Ellis Island rocks!

According to Reuters:

Ellis Island's past returns in immigration row

By Daniel Trotta Thu Jun 14, 10:47 AM ET
ELLIS ISLAND, New York (Reuters) - Ellis Island, once the gateway to America for millions of immigrants, is having a make-over after years of neglect that nearly allowed nature to destroy a national treasure.

But experts caution that, in all of the nostalgia, the country should remember past debates over who should be allowed into the United States.

The restoration of the back end of the 32-acre (13-hectare) island in New York harbor comes as the immigration debate rages anew and President George W. Bush's reforms are stalled.

"I do think it's interesting that we worship Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and yet we want to pull up the gang planks now that we're here," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a history professor at New York's Columbia University.

Some 12 million immigrants, nearly all European, passed through Ellis Island before entering the United States, mostly from 1892 to 1924, though it remained operational until 1954.

Newcomers marveled at views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty on a nearby island, providing memories passed down through the generations.

As many as 100 million Americans have ancestors who passed through Ellis Island, where a French renaissance-style brick palace built in 1900 welcomed hardscrabble immigrants who left the Old World behind.

That main building, with its cavernous arrivals area and soaring ceiling, was repaired in the late 1980s and attracts ferries full of American and foreign tourists.

A new project led by a group called Save Ellis Island is attempting to raise public and private funds for a $250 million rehabilitation of a labyrinth of 30 buildings that were part of a 750-bed hospital for sick newcomers.

This follows the restoration unveiled in April of the ferry building, where processed immigrants boarded boats to New York City and the New Jersey shore.

Private donations for the restoration have come from rich Americans whose ancestors arrived through Ellis Island.

Read more here.

Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Gaelic Language Makes Big Comeback in New Scottish Feature Film 'Searchd'

Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle is the first feature film in Scottish Gaelic.

It is a film from the Scottish Gaelic community starring local Gaelic-speaking actors from the Highlands and Isles and was filmed entirely on the Isle of Skye (An t-Eilean Sgitheanach) off the West Coast of Scotland.

Seachd is not a Hollywood film. The film was shot across just 25 days on a tiny budget, but it is a film with a big heart and it represents the lives of people living in a part of the world that has yet to be shown on the big screen.

The soundtrack to Seachd features some of Gaeldom's greatest living vocalists and musicians - and ancient Gaelic instruments such as the Carnyx (Celtic battle horn), the metal strung Clàrsach (Gaelic harp) and the triplepipes (the predecessor of the bagpipes).

As it's said in Gaelic: Làn fhìrinn na sgeòil -- The truth is in the story. When a young man, Angus, visits his dying Grandfather in hospital he cannot hold back his boyhood quest for the truth - the truth behind the death of his parents and the truth behind his Grandfather's ancient, incredible, fearful stories.

Stories from the whole swathe of Gaelic history of poisoned lovers, bloody revenge, water-horses and Spanish gold.

His Grandfather hijacks Angus' life for one last time leading him to one of Scotland's most treacherous mountains, The Inaccessible Pinnacle on the Isle of Skye, and an ancient truth he never expected to find.

Làn fhìrinn na sgeòil. Tha Aonghas air a bhith air tòir na fìrinn o òige, miann a tha a' teannachadh na inntinn 's na chorp nuair a thuigeas e gu bheil am bàs gu laighe air a Sheanar.

Tha fios aig Aonghas gu bheil an t-àm dha eòlas a chur air an fhìrinn mu bhàs a phàrantan 's cuideachd mu sgeulachdan a Sheanair. Sgeulachdan iongantach, eagalach a thug air cuairt tro eachdraidh nan Gaidheal iad le gaol, sabaid, eich-uisge agus òr Spàinnteach nam measg.

Tha Aonghas 's a Sheanair a' gabhail aon chuairt eile còmhla, cuairt a tha gan toirt gu mullach Sgùrr Dearg 's gu fìrinn ris nach robh dùil sam bith.

Simon Miller's Searchd Official Website

Gyda bob hwyl i bawb, Mark

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods