A window into the Welsh film scene
A local artist has used the walls of Splott to send a message of welcome to Afghan refugees
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Words by Olivia Garrett
artist got in contact with her and offered to translate it. “I thought it would be really nice if an Afghan refugee just passed by and saw their language on Sianed’s wall, it would really feel welcoming,” says Sahar. The mural was completed on 10 October and is the painter’s first outside project which she hopes will help Cardiff become more “visually and linguistically diverse”. Once finished, Sahar had photos of her work printed as postcards which she is now selling for £5 via a PayPal donation pool on Twitter and Instagram. The pool was created with a target of £500 and was surpassed within two weeks. Sahar is now looking to schedule a meeting with the Welsh Refugee
Proud pop-up
A workshop to empower
After popping up in June, the UK’s first Queer Emporium has decided to make Morgan Arcade its permanent home. This central shop, facing St Mary’s Street, was originally intended to be a small four week pop-up for Pride Month, but is now currently transitioning into a full-time store. The shop, now with a staff of seven, has 17 vendors operating from it and is looking to extend its opening hours. The Emporium’s manager Yan White, 28, said “it’s a very steep learning curve.”
Cardiff ’s domestic abuse charities are sending out a strong message with a workshop on how to be an effective activist. On 8 December, Welsh Women’s Aid is running a free online course for those “interested and passionate” about activism to help them start their own gender-based political protests and campaigns. “We recognise that ending violence and abuse takes a whole society approach to social change, and it needs you to get involved,” says Welsh Women’s Aid. This workshop comes out of a collaboration with Cardiff Women’s Aid as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign. The days run from 25 November to Human Rights Day on 10 December.
Road deck to celebrate multiculturalism
The LGBTQ+ flag is a very important symbol
Council where she plans to receive the details of specific families in Cardiff and fund the money directly over to them. According to a statement released by MS Jane Hutt, the minister for social justice, Wales has passed the 50 families supported milestone milestone for Afghan refugees and is expecting 230 more. “I want a nice community and I want to support my community,” says the painter. Sahar is now working on a project funded by the Arts Council of Wales. She is interviewing Iranian locals and turning their experiences into outdoor illustrations and poetry in Farsi. She has completed one on Shirley Road in Roath but plans to do six more across Splott and other parts of the city.
UK government reported that 5.5% of adults experiencde domestic abuse in 2020. As a result, during the 16 Days of Activism, Welsh Women’s Aid encourages participants to wear orange and complete a £60 fundraising challenge with activities such as running and baking. The collaborative workshop plans to give viewers the history of activism and domestic violence while giving tips on how to campaign on social media and how to set up political fundraisers. Welsh Women’s Aid promises, “We will help you to cultivate your talents, so you can become an active activist, raising awareness as well as learning to support your own self-care too.”
image credits | Sahar Saki; Unsplash
local artist is using the walls of Splott to aid and welcome Afghan refugees. Sahar Saki, 35, has painted a mural on a Pearl Street house which uses the Farsi and Dari languages to greet Afghans new to Cardiff. Her message, which reads ‘Afghan refugees welcome to Wales,’ was originally painted in English by the house owner, Sianed Jones, before part of Sahar’s City the Iranian born
Here’s how Gemma Evans used one short lockdown to go from unemployed, to full-time student, worker and entrepeneur
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ome things happen in small doses and some things happen all at once. For Gemma Evans life shot from nought to a hundred during Wales’ fire-breaker lockdown in October 2020, as she went from postuniversity stagnation to the fulltime juggling of study, work and entrepreneurship. “It’s just mad,” she grins, gesturing at her office with its milehigh stack of boxes and drawers of colourful bottles. Having recently moved in with her boyfriend in Newport Gemma, 23, says she needed an extra bedroom just for her surplus of supplies.
When the pandemic hit, Cardiff born Gemma’s university experience abruptly ended and she soon found the novelty of lockdown wearing off.
A nervous start Unemployed and stuck at home, Gemma decided to busy herself again in September with a master’s and a job. Yet it was when her grandparents arrived from Spain with a “lush” smelling crystal hanging from their car mirror, that Gemma chose to ramp up her life even more and launch her business Scent Sensation, which makes car diffusers and sprays.
Gemma was nervous about starting up another business. She was especially worried about the lack of people driving in lockdown, but soon found that over the Christmas period the demand for her colourful diffusers was high.
Trial and error So began her process of trial and error; learning how to order in bulk, buying PPE for assembly, and most fun of all, matching the right colour bottles with the right scents. She says her family were a great help for giving advice and once orders started picking up it became an all-hands-ondeck situation at her Mum’s kitchen table.
“All the fumes were lingering in the room, our spag-bol was smelling like fresh snowflake!” she laughs. Gemma hopes one day to turn Scent Sensation into her full-time job, but as most of her publicity relies on Tik Tok, she worries about changing algorithms.
Gemma now has over 6o scents on her website Image credit | Olivia Garrett
“It goes so much like this” she says, waving her finger up and down, “some weeks I might get three orders, but other weeks I might get 20.” This social media presence really paid off, however, as a simple lipsynching Tik Tok got over 150,000 views in March. “I was shaking as my phone was blowing up and I was texting my boyfriend saying ‘We’ve got over a hundred orders to do!’” Despite this, Gemma still feels awkward when she sets up her ring light for recording, so will often do up to 30 videos in one sitting to get it out of the way. She chuckles, “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d sell a thousand of these scents I wouldn’t believe you for a second.”
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onsider the Welsh countryside. With its sweeping valleys, flowing rivers, and lofty mountains, it is hard to miss its connection with the enchanting lands of J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Which is why it is wholly unsurprising that in the wake of New Zealand’s still-closed borders, Amazon Prime has chosen to move its Lord of the Rings spinoff to Wales. This is not the first, but one of 80 major productions in the last six years to be filmed in South Wales. Now a hub for on-location filming, the Welsh countryside has been described by locations manager Gareth Roberts as one of the best places in the world to film. But with a landscape as unforgiving as its weather, it also presents a very real set of challenges and dangers for any hopeful film crew. “Beware Wales, the last thing you want is to be attacked and eaten by
a sheep,” writes one Facebook user. Yet with film set accidents on the rise, it is apparent that potential risks to crew members should not be underestimated. When filming in Wales, Richard Stoddard has often found himself at the mercy of the elements. Richard, 49, has recently started directing after several years of working as a director of photography and camera operator. He has found that something as simple as rain can slow filming down, as multiple pairs of hands are needed to protect equipment from the surroundings. He states that working on or near water can be extremely dangerous, which is why there must always be a risk assessment alongside teams of safety divers and support boats. In one Welsh film, The Passing, Richard describes the experience of filming at the bottom of a reservoir where the actor burst out of water.
In the wild and unpredictable countryside of South Wales, production crews must work hard to ensure staff safety Words by Olivia Garrett
He says the scene had to be very carefully controlled.with divers guiding her to the correct spot and a team of medics on standby due to the danger of the freezing conditions and weather. “It was February, so the water temperature was around two degrees!” says Richard.
Have somebody there to oversee risks
Logistical Nightmare
Brief the crew verbally at the start
After filming is complete, Monmouthshire resident Richard reveals that safe access to and from locations is just as difficult. In order to transport the amount of equipment, quads and gators (large off-road vehicles) are needed due to the unpaved and slippery roads. This in itself Gareth Roberts calls “a logistical nightmare.” As a locations manager, he must often find places that are accessible and safe enough to house a big film crew.
Have an easy to read risk assessment
Be flexible and adaptable, plans might change Safety Solutions, a team of TV and film safety specialists comprised of mountain rescue volunteers. The business has operated out of Wales and the South West for the last 36 years, working with companies such as BBC Wales. “It is very much about looking at the situation, looking at what the director wants to achieve, and finding a way of doing that safely,” says Martin. After supervising on many shoots he has found the most dangerous filming location in Wales to be a quarry. While controlling risks at height is easy to manage, it is at the base of these quarries where other unforeseen risks may emerge. With over 2000 mines and quarries currently active and in the UK, Martin and his team must sometimes curb a director’s plans in order to maintain safety.
Helicopter View One of the easiest mistakes a crew can make, according to the safety supervisor, is not appreciating all of the potential dangers.
Handling equipment correctly is vital on location
“It’s Human nature,” says Martin, “people are so focussed on their job they lose attention. Sometimes our job will be sidling up to somebody and saying ‘put a helmet on’ and sometimes it’s a question of talking to the first assistant director. Martin believes it is essential to always have somebody who is able to take a helicopter view of things. Because only then can the Welsh countryside be seen as it truly is, dramatic and beautiful, but teeming with dangers. For many productions, the highs and lows of the stories they tell are nothing in comparison to the highs and lows of the Welsh landscape.
Image credits | Olivia Garrett
In a recent project Gareth was tasked with finding a quarry in Wales that would fit nine vans of equipment, all the while needing to be aware of danger points that would be cordoned off. He maintains however, that any type of filming is possible when correct measures and safety officers are brought in. As one of these officers, Martin Papworth will often go with a locations manager beforehand and remain throughout the shoot. Martin, 43, is a director at On Sight
Consider how the environment might change
Filming in Barry has all the challenging weather and landscapes a film crew might struggle with : cliffs, falling rocks and water