Big screens at Glastonbury festival will play films from Welsh filmmakers
words: Katherine Harrap
This year music won’t be the only thing playing at Glastonbury 2010. Skillset Screen Academy Wales, It’s My Shout and BAFTA Cymru have formed a partnership to support the Glastonbury Village Screen Project.
Led by the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the BBC, the Village Screen Project started out life in 2009, enabling festival-goers to watch on two giant digital screens a collection of short films, festival archive footage and gaming sessions; however, this year there will be a twist. The Welsh partnership that has pledged to support this event will, in return, be able to provide a selection of some of the best live action and animated films from Welsh filmmakers.
Alongside that, the three organizations will be showing a collection of films created by Welsh students, graduates and professional filmmakers, which would highlight the standards of film education, training and filmmaking within Wales, to the international audience of the Glastonbury Festival. They will gather two specialist programs amounting to about 200 minutes of screen time. The first programme will be shown in the after dark slot, late into the night, allowing them to show films with darker, more sinister themes. The second programme will fill part of the daily Animation/Ambient programme.
BAFTA Cymru’s Events and Awards Coordinator, Faye Hannah explained: “This is an exciting opportunity for both fledgling and experienced Welsh filmmakers alike. By sponsoring the Curated Films Programme on behalf of Wales, Welsh film and education can benefit from the positive association of supporting Glastonbury, and its ‘members’ can benefit from having their work showcased as part of this illustrious festival.”