Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance
When Dream Alliance – a horse literally raised by a small village in an ex mining valley – wins the 2009 Welsh National, it became a feel-good story that films are made of.
Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance is produced by World’s End Pictures and Darlow Smithson Productions and co-financed by Film4, the BFI Film Fund and The Film Agency for Wales.
Just Jim
Newport’s Craig Roberts is already making a name for himself at home and in Hollywood; and he’s also made his directorial debut at the age of 24. This is a coming of age film starring Roberts (who also wrote the film) as a lonely Welsh teenager whose popularity increases when an American (Emile Hirsch) moves in next door.
“Roberts’s directorial debut mixes Dostoevskian paranoia and cracked humour with impressive confidence” Mark Kermode, The Observer
Under Milk Wood
A colourful, dream-like cinematographic version of Dylan Thomas’s “play for voices” was submitted as the UK’s official contender for a foreign language (two versions – Welsh and English – were filmed) film in 2016’s Oscars. It was unfortunately unsuccessful but still a feat for Welsh cinema!
Convenience
Bafta Cymru-winning director Keri Collins’s indie comedy was filmed in an old petrol garage in Gorseinon, Swansea. The film has gained largely positive reviews, with Empire Magazine calling it “A lo-fi Brit com with all the pleasures of an American indie.”
Orion
What would a documentary about an urban myth where Elvis Presley fakes his death and re-emerges as the masked singer Orion (in reality singer Jimmy Ellis, dismissed as a Presley sound-alike during Elvis’s lifetime) have to do with Welsh cinema? Well, ORION: The Man Who Would Be King was produced by Caerphilly-born Dewi Gregory and supported by Film Agency Wales… after all, Porthcawl is the home of the UK’s biggest Elvis Festival!
words CHRIS WILLIAMS