Gracie Richards speaks to first time filmmakers, writer-director Craig Williams and producer Julien Allen about their debut short film, The Wyrm of Bwlch Pen Barras.
The independent Welsh folk horror short, set in Rhuthun, in North Wales, the hometown of writer-director Craig Williams, follows three men as they are called upon to carry out a ‘terrible assignment’ on the mountain of Bwlch Pen Barras.
The cast and crew screening at Chapter in Canton, Cardiff, was the first time the short was shown on the big screen for a select audience, and was followed by a Q&A with Craig Williams, producer Julien Allen and actor Seán Carlsen.
Structurally, the film jumps in and out of different scenes, purposefully inspired by the dreamlike elements of the Welsh myths and legends of the Mabinogion.
Lawyers by day, Williams and Allen – both self described film buffs – explain how they ended up joining forces to create their 20 minute short. Williams ‘sat on it for three months before deciding what to do about it’, and approached Allen so that they could make it together.
To get the ball rolling, a key point for Williams was getting world renowned cinematographer Sean Price Williams on the team: ‘Julien was in a film festival and sat next to him at a party and managed to talk him into it there. As soon as we had him on board we were able to make other things happen.’
With Sean Price Williams on their crew they succeeded in casting an all-Welsh trio: actor, singer-songwriter and activist Bryn Fôn, alongside Morgan Hopkins (Hinterland, Doctor Who), and Séan Carlson (All Creatures Great and Small, His Dark Materials).
Structurally, the film jumps in and out of different scenes, purposefully inspired by the dreamlike elements of the Welsh myths and legends of the Mabinogion.
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Williams, who is a ‘horror film fanatic’, explained how he decided to create the eerie atmosphere that presides over the film, adding that he loves how the horror genre embraces its clichés and tropes. ‘For me, the scariest thing is not knowing something and paranoia. So I wanted to have a very straightforward story in a world, in a context where we don’t know what’s going on. So that’s where the horror comes from for me: it looks like a normal morning, in a normal place, on a normal day, but something horrific is happening and it’s happening in the most business-like manner possible, which is a terrifying idea for me.’
Being brought up on the stories of the Mabinogion, the modern context portrayal of the story of the Welsh dragon on which the film is ‘loosely based’ created another unknown element to the plot as the audience is left on a ‘cliffhanger.’
Allen, also a horror fan, described his reaction as an audience member after seeing the film, which was written and devised by Williams: ‘There’s something about the fact that you know it’s a horror film. You’re wondering where the horror is and so it’s cheating because it’s called ‘The Wyrm of Bwlch Pen Barras,’ but when the titles come up they’re all in sort of old Hammer style. What I personally love about the finished film is that when the action starts you start to wonder – oh, perhaps this isn’t what I think I’m going to watch, and actually maybe the wyrm is the metaphor and maybe the horror is just a kind of concept that we’re being conned. Bit by bit you just know something is brewing and that’s a happy outcome I think. And that’s kind of the heart of horror for me.’
The film alludes to the fact that this ‘terrible assignment’ is a recurring event in the town, quietly understood by its residents as a necessary evil. This is all elevated by minimal talking throughout the 20 minutes of the film.
The poster says ‘Fate will unwind as it must’, a line from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf which is also behind why the creature in the film is called Wyrm. Williams explains: ‘Beowulf goes to fight the dragon at the end and it’s referred to as a Wyrm. I like the ‘y’. I like the way it looks and I thought it had that arcane feel to it, when you combine old English with a very Welsh place name. I thought it looked quite cool even though it’s a bit of an unwieldy title’.
Being brought up on the stories of the Mabinogion, the modern context portrayal of the story of the Welsh dragon on which the film is ‘loosely based’ created another unknown element to the plot as the audience is left on a ‘cliffhanger.’
Williams said that he imagined the story ‘playing around and round’ in his head where ‘the Welsh dragon and the king who is escaping from the Anglo-Saxons tries to build a city in Wales but the buildings in the city keep crumbling and he thinks its because the dragon under the ground needs a sacrifice.’
The film was shot in both English and Welsh, after deciding on the first day of filming that the Welsh dialogue sounded so fitting. ‘Even Sean who doesn’t speak a word of Welsh picked up on this as well. He was saying how good it sounded in Welsh. We just took it from there really. Because things were moving so quickly and were keeping to time we thought why not film two versions back to back.’
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Tying together more Welsh culture, the short was scored by two legends of Welsh music, Dafydd Ieuan and Cian Ciarán from Super Furry Animals. Williams explained how this came to be: ‘There was a connection between them and our casting agent and we thought they would be amazing because they transcend Welsh culture, especially the broader culture. I think they also hop between genres and that was going to be very useful for the film. We needed people who were really into music themselves so we could see what they could come up with for this kind of thing.’
Now, as they wait to hear back from over 50 film and genre festivals both Williams and Allen note how they hope that what they’ve done with a small budget and no experience will be a telling feature of what they could do next. ‘The well is overflowing with ideas,’ noted Williams.
And Julien said: ‘Let’s just say there are a number of ideas that have been discussed. A lot of what the future holds depends on how the film is perceived and recognised and depends on what directions the process takes us. By September to December we ought to have an idea of what the future holds.’
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