If you’re one of the many people who have turned the detective series Hinterland from a S4C cult drama to a bonafide international hit, chances are you’re a fan of Gareth Bryn and don’t even know it. The Pontypridd-born director is regularly behind the camera on the series, and is responsible for Hinterland’s dark but stunning first episode, Devil’s Bridge, amongst others.

Having stamped his unique style on the massively popular show, Bryn is now turning toward the big-screen with his debut feature length film, The Passing/Yr Ymadawiad, due for release on Friday 8th April. With a script by Ed Talfan, the writer and co-creator of Hinterland, it’s an ambitious and ambiguous Welsh-language drama which is sure to be divisive amongst audiences.

Bewildering and brilliant, I jumped at the chance to speak to the down-to-earth director about The Passing, as well as Hinterland and the future of the Welsh film industry.

JR: How would you best describe The Passing and can you tell me a little bit about where the idea came from?

GB: It was written by Ed Talfan, the co-creator of Hinterland, which is where we started working together. He started off wanting to write a silent movie and he found out pretty quickly that that wasn’t going to be possible, that some people were going to have to start talking to each other at some point.

I think the spirit of that has carried on straight into the film. The first ten minutes, I think, is completely dialogue-less and even then there are lots and lots of silences throughout. I think he was really keen to write a genre film in the Welsh language as well, because that’s not something that’s really done.

JR: The film deals with dark themes. Did they make it difficult to get the film made?

GB: Not at all. Originally it was part of the scheme called Boom Cymru and they were making micro-budget movies. There was an incredible amount of freedom and we were allowed to be as a brave as we wanted, because it doesn’t have to be a commercial success. There are no money-men on the back end saying this has got to make money, so we were allowed to make the film we wanted to make.

We wanted to make a film that gets under the skin and stays with you afterwards, something that you’ll watch the first time and think “I don’t know what to think of that”. That’s fine. It’s okay for people to be talking about it afterwards and say “I’m not sure if I understood it”. This does haunt you afterwards, but all the clues are there. Every line is there for a reason.

JR: There’s a supernatural element to the story and the film touches upon themes of spirituality. You’ve touched upon things like folklore and religion previously with Hinterland, so is the supernatural something you find yourself attracted to?

GB: It’s probably closer to the sort of thing that Ed is interested in, because these are themes that come up all the time. Mainly, we like to make films that could only exist in Wales. There’s a big industry in Wales for television and film – lots of American studios come over here and use the facilities and locations – but we have no Welsh legacy. For example, the BBC does film here, but a lot of those scenes are set in London. It doesn’t represent Wales and who we are, so we are keen to do the unique thing which is to represent ourselves.

Nobody else is making films about Wales and we’ve got such a beautiful language, such a beautiful landscape, beautiful history and poetry, that it makes sense to us to be making films about that. And people like it. We took this to America and people weren’t quite sure what they were watching. It was like “oh my god, where is this magical kingdom”. And it’s just the Brecon Beacons, just down the road.

There’s an industry in Wales that doesn’t represent the people in Wales, and I think that’s a shame because we won’t have any legacy left. Those American studios will move on to the next tax haven or the next good deal, and we’ll have a load of empty studios left. We don’t want to do that, we want to make films that touch on our past, and our religion, and our heritage.

JR: So you won’t be running off to London anytime soon then?

GB: No chance. I like the quiet life.

JR: But do you think the Welsh film industry is improving?

GB: I hope so. The fact is that Hinterland has sold in every country around the world. Millions and millions of people have watched the show, which is incredible. Thanks to shows like The Killing and The Bridge, European dramas with subtitles are a big thing. That’s allowed us to sneak in and prove that we have an interesting language as well, that we can make subtitled drama as well.

In Germany, Hinterland is watched by something like four-million people. It’s crazy and brilliant. So when we go these festivals or broadcast fares and we make a phone call saying we’d like to meet up, because they know who we are and that we do Hinterland, they pick up the phone. Those meetings are happening, so what we hope will happen in the near future is that we’ll get to do more television and film, more bilingual film. But maybe it won’t be Welsh and English, maybe it’ll be Welsh and German.

JR: You’re working with a lot of people from Hinterland on this, did that make the whole production process easier?

GB: What’s great about working with people who you know and respect, is that the shorthand is already there. On set, me and the cameraman or the DOP [director of photography] will say very little to each other really; we’ll just look at each other and know if something works or not.

Once that relationship has already been established, it makes making a film feel very streamlined. When you’re trying to forge relationships whilst making a film, it’s a politics game – you’re trying to suss people out. When that’s all stripped away it makes it a purer process, so that was nice. It was a tight schedule and in that case you need people around you who know what they’re doing so that you’re like a military operation.

JR: How important is casting on a film like this, where the plot is solely driven by the characters?

GB: I think Ed always wrote the part of Stanley for Mark. I think in his head it was always going to be Mark Lewis Jones playing him. He has such charisma. He has to do so little on screen and he just draws you in. To be honest, if he had said no, I don’t know what we would have done. I don’t know who would have played it.

Then we just began auditioning people for the other two roles. Annes, who plays Sara, came in and she did the most wonderful performance. She’s got such a beautiful look, very European. Again, she has to do very little on screen and I think the audience just falls in love with her. When we saw her audition on camera, it was a no-brainer really.

JR: What’s next? Is there more Hinterland on the way?

GB: Yeah, we’re doing another four episodes of Hinterland. I’ve just shot episode one and I’m going to shoot episode three in about four weeks. That takes me to about August and in the meantime we’ll just try and get the next film off the ground.

JR: Is there already an idea?

GB: We’ve got a few. With the nature of film-making, it takes so long to get things made that we’re going all out.

The next film will be a bit bigger than The Passing; it’ll have a bigger budget and perhaps some big name actors. With the next one, we’ll try not make it such a hard sell. The Passing is a very beautiful film, but it doesn’t fit into any real genre. So our next one will be a very clear genre, whether that’s thriller or horror or straight drama. We’ll have a keener eye on that and aim higher I think. We’ve got to keep building and going that one step higher.

The Passing/Yr Ymadawiad is released Friday 8th April.

words JOE RICHARDS