Wales One World Film Festival
Gŵyl Ffilm Cymru a'r Byd yn Un

Yng ngoleuni'r amgylchiadau presennol, rydym wedi penderfynu gohirio Gŵyl Ffilm WOW. Ni fydd unrhyw un o'r dangosiadau a'r digwyddiadau sydd ar y gweill dros y mis nesaf yn digwydd. Bydd gan unrhyw un sydd wedi prynu tocyn ymlaen llaw hawl i gael ad-daliad llawn.

Mae hyn yn teimlo fel y peth cyfrifol i'w wneud gan ein bod yn credu mai'r rhesymeg hollgyffredinol yw cyfyngu cyswllt cymdeithasol yn ystod pandemig. Rydym yn gobeithio mai dim ond gohirio yw hwn ac y gallwn redeg yr ŵyl yn nes ymlaen. Fodd bynnag, mae cymaint o bethau anhysbys ar hyn o bryd fel nad yw'n glir a fyddwn mewn sefyllfa i wneud hynny. Byddwn yn eich diweddaru chi i gyd wrth i bethau symud ymlaen.

Os hoffech gael rhestr o ffilmiau argymelledig yn ystod eich cyfnod o hunan-ynysu, croeso i chi fy e-bostio ar gyfer fy argymhellion diweddaraf.

David Gillam
Cyfarwyddwr Gŵyl Ffilm Un Byd WOW Cymru

Chatting to a friend recently about the wonderful Ida and the not-quite-so-good Cold War, she said to me “B&W films can seem more real than colour”, a thought-provoking observation about how authenticity doesn’t necessarily come from trying to slavishly reproduce the ‘real world’.

But how come B&W films can seem ‘more real’ than those shot in colour? I certainly find that B&W images often stay with me so clearly and are somehow much more memorable than colour ones.

I had a great time at Sheffield DocFest, meeting up with a number of colleagues, making some new contacts and seeing a dozen films. This was the first time I had been to the DocFest and among my highlights were:

• The John Pilger master class  - respect that he’s still going strong! 
• Grayson Perry talk  - a bit of stand-up comedy really, but interestingly from the clips he showed his TV docs work much better when he’s not in drag.
• The opening night trip to a cave to see sweet Bhutanese film Happiness. A coach trip is a good way to meet new folk, in this case an Indonesian filmmaker.

Three reasons you should come and see The Past tomorrow night in Aberystwyth.

1. The actors are all superb.

2. Director Farhadi doesn't spoon feed the audience but expects you to work out what is going on in the relationships between the characters. So people see different things depending what they bring to the cinema.

3. I've been thinking about it a lot since I first saw it last year, a sure sign of a good adult movie that will leave you something to chew over.

Mark Cousins joined us last night for a Q&A Following A Story of Children and Film at Chapter Arts Centre.  It was a great evening and I thought that you'd enjoy these photos of the event.  

In the run up to our festival screening of Mark Cousins's A Story of Children and Film, we're posting a daily blog on our friends and supporters' childhood experiences of cinema.  I thought it would be nice to start things off with why The Jungle Book is my favourite children’s film.  Aged 11 I was taken to see The Jungle Book as a Christmas treat by my grandmother in a huge old Odeon in the middle of Birmingham. We had to queue to get in and the cinema was packed with excited kids. An atmosphere more like the circus or pantomime than the empty, echoing cinemas I’d been used to up till then. It was a hugely influential experience on the rest of my life. Why couldn’t we all be happy with the “simple bare necessities of life”? It seemed to me unarguably true that hanging out with Baloo, playing in the jungle and living free was more fun than going back to school.