Cyfrwng 2009 Welsh Media Conference hosted by BBC Cymru Wales, Cardiff 7-8 May 2009

CYFRWNG 2009 CONFERENCE

hosted by BBC Cymru Wales, Cardiff

7-8 May 2009

‘Audiences’

The Cyfrwng 2009 conference will be held at the BBC Cymru Wales Broadcasting Centre, Cardiff on 7-8 May and this year’s theme is ‘Audiences’.

During the two day event, an array of speakers, papers and panels will consider many different aspects of media Audiences in Wales from the changes in audience usage of media to issues of regulation and accountability.

Emphasis will be on the specific needs of Welsh audiences in a range of areas including children’s programming and theatre audiences. Attention will also be paid to the impact of new media technologies within the multiplatform era.

The future of news in Wales will also be considered with the plurality of news a key aspect for discussion. The conference aims to bring together scholarly voices and industry professionals and to encourage dialogue between the academy and the media industry.



[Pictured above: Menna Richards, Director, BBC Cymru Wales]

Confirmed speakers include:

Menna Richards, Director of BBC Cymru Wales

Alun Ffred Jones, AM and Welsh Assembly Government Heritage Minister

Professor Sylvia Harvey, Professor of Broadcasting Policy, Lincoln School of Media

Judith Isherwood, Chief Executive of the Wales Millennium Centre

Alun Davies, AM Labour

Alan Edmunds, Editorial Director of Media Wales and Western Mail Editor

Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas

Elis Owen, Controller of ITV Wales

Professor Kevin Williams, Swansea University

John McGrath, Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales

Elwyn Williams, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru

Simon Popple, Director of the Louis Le Prince Centre, University of Leeds

Dr Cynthia Carter, Cardiff University

Keith Towler, Children’s Commissioner for Wales

Tony Wearn, Research Director, BARB

Sangeet Bhullar, Wise Kids

Mandy Rose, BBC Cymru Wales, Creative Director, Multiplatform

Tony Jordan, Red Planet

Nick Beasley, Chief Executive of Audiences Wales

Professor Hamish Fyfe, University of Glamorgan

Simon Marshall, First Light

Siân Eirian, Head of Children’s Service, S4C

Hywel Wiliam, Ofcom Head of Broadcasting & Telecommunications, Wales

Dr Ceri Sherlock, BBC Cymru Wales Commissioning Executive, Arts

Nia Ceidiog, Cynyrchiadau Ceidiog Creations



[Pictured above: Alun Ffred Jones, AM and Welsh Assembly Government Heritage Minister]

The conference programme and registration form are available at
www.cyfrwng.com


The programme will be updated regularly.

For further information, contact Dr Rebecca Williams, Swansea University at r.s.williams[at]swansea[dot]ac.[dot]uk



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Cardiff Chapter Arts Centre's Film Expert Tony Whitehead Publishes Important New Book on British TV & Film's Mike Leigh

Tony Whitehead is Cinema Programmer at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. He also works as a part-time lecturer in film at the University of Glamorgan. His book on Mike Leigh has just been published by Manchester University Press.

Read the British Film Magazine Online Review of Tony Whitehead's newest book on Mike Leigh here.

Tony Whitehead in among the film students' favourite lecturers at the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries ATRiuM (CCI) Film & Media department, currently teaching 'Screen Language' and other courses.

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

[Pictured above: Director Mike Leigh 1943-]

Read Tony Whitehead's article in Screen Online about Mike Leigh.

Read Tony Whitehead's article in Screen Online about Mike Leigh!

Amazon Review:

Tony Whitehead's new book on Mike Leigh is actually enjoyable, not to mention that Leigh himself endorsed it.

It's a wonderful trip down memory lane, revisiting every character and hilariously tragic line of dialogue from Bleak Moments to Vera Drake. Vanessa Gildea, Film Ireland --Vanessa Gildea, Film Ireland

Tony Whitehead writes for the the Irish Film Institute about MIKE LEIGH’S TV FILMS

Amazon Synopsis:

Mike Leigh may well be Britain's greatest living film director; his worldview has permeated our national consciousness.





This book gives detailed readings of the nine feature films he has made for the cinema, as well as an overview of his work for television.



Written with the co-operation of Leigh himself, this is the first study of his work to challenge the critical privileging of realism in histories of the British cinema, and place the emphasis instead on the importance of comedy and humour:

of jokes and their functions, of laughter as a survival mechanism, and of characterisations and situations that disrupt our preconceptions of 'realism'.



Striving for the all-important quality of truth in everything he does, Leigh has consistently shown how ordinary lives are too complex to fit snugly into the conventions of narrative art.

Developing characters and narratives through meticulous processes of improvisation in preparation and rehearsal, Leigh has led his collaborators in creating a body of work that is utterly distinctive.



From the bittersweet observation of "Life is Sweet" or "Secrets and Lies", to the blistering satire of "Naked" and the manifest compassion of "Vera Drake", he has demonstrated a matchless ability to perceive life's funny side as well as its tragedies, establishing a unique niche in the British cinema as both humorist and humanist.

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Manchester University Press (1 May 2007)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0719072379

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

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

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© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

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ATRiuM Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

The Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations Announces the next upcoming Cardiff Academic ATRiuM Event . . .

The Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries has moved from the University's Treforest campus to our new ATRiuM home in Cardiff city centre.

With ‘state of the art’ facilities this will offer exciting opportunities for joint work with new partners.

Public Lecture on Small-Nation Filmmaking by Professor Mette Hjort, 5.30pm Weds 28th November 2007

Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM on Wednesday 28th November. In her only public appearance in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The ‘Advance Party’ Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.

‘Advance Party’ is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier’s Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.

Distinguished academic Professor Mette Hjort will be speaking at ATRiuM at 5.30pm Weds 28th November. In her only public talk in Wales, Professor Hjort will deliver a lecture on The 'Advance Party' Initiative: Scottish/Danish Solutions to the Problems of Small-Nation Filmmaking.



'Advance Party' is a Scottish Dogme project which sets out to do for Scotland what director Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 had done for Denmark. Professor Hjort will examine how this unique model of transnational filmmaking helps to provide solutions to the problems of small-nation filmmaking.

Professor Hjort is the Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Film Studies at St Andrews in Scotland and Professor of Visual Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. She has published Small Nations, Global Cinema, and co-edited volumes including The Cinema of Small Nations, Cinema and Nation, The Postnational Self and Purity and Provocation: Dogme 95.

About one of the newest books by Professor Mette, The Cinema of Small Nations:

Synopsis: Within cinema studies there has emerged a significant body of scholarship on the idea of 'National Cinema' but there has been a tendency to focus on the major national cinemas.

Less developed within this field is the analysis of what we might term minor or small national cinemas, despite the increasing significance of these small entities with the international domain of moving image production, distribution and consumption.

"The Cinema of Small Nations" is the first major analysis of small national cinemas, comprising twelve case studies of small national - and sub national - cinemas from around the world, including Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, Scotland, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Written by an array of distinguished and emerging scholars, each of the case studies provides a detailed analysis of the particular cinema in question, with an emphasis on the last decade, considering both institutional and textual issues relevant to the national dimension of each cinema.

While each chapter contains an in-depth analysis of the particular cinema in question, the book as a whole provides the basis for a broader and more properly comparative understanding of small or minor national cinemas, particularly with regard to structural constraints and possibilities, the impact of globalization and internationalisation, and the role played by economic and cultural factors in small-nation contexts.



This book includes the first major study of a range of small national cinemas. It provides detailed and informative studies of particular small national cinemas from around the globe.

It features an implicit comparative element that reveals major similarities and differences across the case studies.

It also features a strong line up of international contributors including a number of major internationally recognised experts in the field.

It is written in an accessible style to appeal to students, academics and the general reader alike.

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries / ATRiuM
The University of Glamorgan Adam Street Cardiff CF24 2XF

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

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© 2007 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Czech Karlovy Vary A-List Film Festival's World Premiere of RTE Drama 'Damage' (2007) by 'Song for a Raggy Boy' (2003)'s Irish Director Aisling Walsh

Pictured above: Steaming geysers nourish the lush red rose hedges along the icy mountain river in the center of Karlovy Vary's castle-lined boulevards, where once a year Hollywood goes 'Bohemian' at the world's most fabulous A-List Film Fest.

And this year, it's party time for the Irish in Bohemia!

42nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Irish Director Aisling Walsh's new film Damage (2007) has its World Premiere at the 42nd Karlovy Vary Film Fest in the Czech Republic, which is among the top ten A-List Film Fests around the globe each year.

The Karlovy Vary IFF is one of the oldest film festivals of all time (the first year took place in 1946). For more than 40 years the festival was organized under the pressure of the political situation in socialist Czechoslovakia.

Aisling Walsh entered the public stage with her short films (such as Hostage, which was shot while she was studying at the National Film School and which won her awards at the Chicago Film Festival and the Tours Film festival).

She successfully made her way in television (with the serial Trial and Retribution, (1997), the homosexual love story Forgive and Forget, (2000), the story of emancipated mothers in the 1960’s, Sinners, (2002), and the drama Fingersmith, (2005), nominated for the BAFTA award, among others).

The talented director found success off the small-screen with the movie Joyriders (1989) and in particular with the dramatic tale of the fortunes of an idealistic teacher in a boy’s reform school set in 1930s Ireland, Song for a Raggy Boy (2002), in which the lead role was played by Aidan Quinn, and which was screened in competition at Karlovy Vary in 2003.

Colour, 35 mm
Ireland, 2007, 95 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Horizons

Director: Aisling Walsh
Screenplay: Aisling Walsh
Dir. of Photography: Simon Kossoff
Music: Niall Byrne
Designer: John Hand
Editor: Stephen O’Connell
Producer: Tristan Lynch, Dominic Wright
Production: Subotica Entertainment Ltd.
Contact: Subotica Entertainment Ltd.

Cast: Nathalie Press, Olivia Williams, Brendan Coyle, David O’Hara

Irish Director Aisling Walsh Damage (2007) Trailer (download from KVFF site):



Damage (1 x 90 mins or 2 x 1 hour) - produced for RTE - is a tense and pacy drama directed by Aisling Walsh (BAFTA-nominated Fingersmith, Trial & Retribution) in which a family's seemingly perfect life is shattered when the daughter, Emma, is raped by a family friend at her 21st birthday party.

With the key suspect released on bail, and dark family secrets coming to the fore, Emma's life begins to freefall until a chance meeting with her rapist convinces her that she needs to go to court and confront him before she can move on with her life.

Synopsis:

The Cahills would pass for a normal, happy, and all around successful family. Emma continues in the lifestyle of her father Aidan and mother Michelle, and begins trying to make it as a model.

Hardly anyone suspects that the husband and wife live separate lives, the most important people in which are actually Aidan’s secretary and their family friend John Ward, the father of their daughter’s friend Laurel.

The outward image of the socially well-positioned family changes however when the Cahills hold a party to celebrate their daughter’s 21st birthday in their home in an elegant Dublin suburb, and Emma is raped.

The girl refuses to silently reconcile herself with her traumatic experience. What chance does she have against her antagonist and his lawyers?

How will she find a way to come to terms with what happened to her? And will her friends and family be capable of banding together to help her?

This psychological drama by director Aisling Walsh tells of the dark shadows cast on the private and public image of one successful family.

Written and directed by Aisling Walsh, "Damage" stars Nathalie Press, Olivia WIlliams, David O'Hara and Brendan Coyle. International Sales are through Minotaur.

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.

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© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

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Yn Mapio Ffilmiau Cymreig fel ‘an Irish Shangra-La’ / Mapping Cinematic Wales as ‘an Irish Shangra-La’

Pictured above: New Welsh Film Book by Dr. Gwenno Ffrancon Jenkins, Swansea University

In her recent book, 'Cyfaredd y Cysgodion - Delweddu Cymru a'i Phobl ar Ffilm, 1935 – 1951', film scholar Gwenno Ffrancon Jenkins points to the ‘othering’ of the Welsh by director John Ford in the film How Green was My Valley (1941).

Ford adapted an indigenous Welsh novel by author Richard Llewellyn, but directed and cast the script in such a way to create not a Welsh story, but an Irish story in a Welsh motif, what Berry has called ‘an Irish Shangra-La’ (Berry 1994: 17).

Ffrancon Jenkins reflects this in her statement:

'mai ffilm am Gymru drwy lygaid a lleisiau Gwyddelig a gynhyrchwyd yn y diwedd . . . A dyma un o'i diffygion pennaf.'

'It is a film on Wales through the Irish eyes and voices and direction right to the end.' (Ffrancon-Jenkins 2003: 18) [all Welsh to English translations by the author of this study, unless otherwise noted].

So in Ffrancon Jenkins’ opinion, Ford has rendered the Welsh as ‘contributors’ to his Irish fable, similarly to the ‘primitive’ but proper Welshwomen-known-as-Englishwomen in ‘Outsider’ François Truffaut’s film 'Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent' (1971), and she writes about ‘Welsh Cinematic Outsider’ Ford’s characterization of the Welsh people:

"Y canlyniad yw ‘darluniau afreal’ o'r Cymry fel ‘simple, primitive people’."

"Consequently it is an ‘unreal portrayal’ of the Welsh as ‘simple, primitive people.’" (Ffrancon-Jenkins 2003: 19)

Ford based his film upon Llewellyn’s novel. Llewellyn was a Welshman born into the London Welsh Diaspora, and he did sufficient ‘cultural tourism’ while visiting his grandfather in the South Wales mining community of Gilfach-goch, to base his novel on this village.

So while Ford and Llewellyn are both ‘Outsiders’ to varying degrees, Llewellyn is an important type of ‘Insider’ who went away from Wales and became an ‘Outsider’ (as a scriptwriter for the American studio, MGM), which permitted him to peddle his narrative wares to the global, cinematic imperial powers in Hollywood, in this case the iconic John Ford, best known for his Hollywood Westerns.

'Cyfaredd y Cysgodion - Delweddu Cymru a'i Phobl ar Ffilm, 1935 – 1951' is a thorough and highly readable social and cultural study of the influence of the cinema on the lives of Welsh people between 1935 and 1951, and how Wales and her people have been portrayed by film makers. 25 black-and-white illustrations.

Mae 'Cyfaredd y Cysgodion - Delweddu Cymru a'i Phobl ar Ffilm, 1935 – 1951' astudiaeth gymdeithasol a diwylliannol drylwyr a hynod ddarllenadwy o ddylanwad y sinema ar fywyd pobl Cymru rhwng 1935 a 1951, ac ar y modd y delweddwyd Cymru a'i phobl gan wneuthurwyr ffilm. 25 llun du-a-gwyn.

‘Robustly historical view of Welsh cinematic heritage . . . the first social and industrial study of the formative years of the genre in Wales . . . Gwenno Ffrancon has used every archive available to her, and she treats the ‘unknown’ with a great deal of empathy and understanding . . . this volume certainly succeeds in rediscovering the beginnings of the ‘forgetting chambers’ in Wales.’ (New Welsh Review)

Y mae Gwenno Ffrancon, brodor o Flaen-plwyf ger Aberystwyth, yn ddarlithydd ffilm yn Adran Cyfathrebu a’r Cyfryngau, Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor.

Gan Gwales: 'All neb ddadlau â honiad y broliant fod hon yn 'gyfrol arloesol'. Mae'r ymdriniaeth drylwyr, ddychmygus, amlonglog hon â detholiad o ffilmiau o Gymru ac am Gymru rhwng 1935 a 1951 yn gamp gyflawn ynddi'i hun, ond y mae hefyd yn agor maes enfawr a chyfoethog i eraill ymchwilio ynddo . . .'

'Mae hi'n gyfrol a fydd o ddiddordeb i rychwant llydan o ddarllenwyr, ond yr hyn sy'n rhoi rhuddin iddi yw ysgolheictod gadarn ac ymchwil fanwl ei hawdur.'

'Mae'r rhestr ffynonellau ar ddau gyfandir yn tystio i barodrwydd Gwenno Ffrancon i fynd yr ail a'r drydedd filltir er mwyn medru llunio darlun mor gynhwysfawr, mor gyflawn ei gyd-destunau â phosibl o'i phwnc. Mae ei gallu i wisgo het y beirniad ffilm a het yr hanesydd diwylliannol gyda'r un argyhoeddiad yn ei galluogi i wneud cyfiawnder â'i thestun.’

www.gwales.com

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

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Don't Miss Welsh and British Film Expert Steve Blandford Speak Tonight in Cardiff!

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!