Watch: Tryweryn animated film that will be shown Cardiff International Film Festival

An animated film telling the story of Tryweryn is to be screened at the Cardiff International Film Festival at the end of October.

The film by Osian Roberts, who comes from Llanerchymedd on Anglesey, has been selected to form part of the ‘Welsh Films’ category at the festival.

Osian Roberts studied an Art Foundation course at Coleg Menai, Bangor, before going on to study BA Animation at Manchester Metropolitan University.

He said that he viewed the film festival as an “opportunity to get the story out” of the drowning of Capel Celyn to a wider audience.

“I worked really hard on the film during the pandemic, and I was able to put in the hours because I was spending a lot of time in the house,” Osian Roberts told Golwg360.

“I worked on the film, the animation and so forth, on my own – and then I had someone to help me with the music.

“I’m just really proud that the film was chosen, it’s a little surreal really.”

‘Don’t know the details’

He eventually made the film as his graduate project at the School Of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.

“The more I was in Manchester, the more I got into Welsh history, and I think I was longing for home,” he said.

“So I was researching the history of Wales, and I knew about the history of Capel Celyn history before, but I decided that this is the story I would like to make a film about.

“Everyone knows the story of Capel Celyn, but we don’t know the details, so I felt like it was really interesting to go into that.

“I decided to make this film about the history, and then ran with the idea.”

But when he discussed the film with his friends and fellow students at Manchester he realised that the history wasn’t as well known as he thought.

“Over the border in England, I noticed when I was pitching the idea at university that not many people had heard the story,” he said.

“They knew the wall, but not the story.”