Culture

Welsh film festival to screen archive footage from 1898 alongside new talent

14 Oct 2026 3 minute read

Children on the Beach (1898) – pioneering film footage captured on Rhyl Sands by Arthur Cheetham.

Nation.Cymru staff

Footage of children playing on a Welsh beach in 1898 will be screened alongside work by emerging filmmakers at a new festival celebrating 130 years of cinema in Wales.

Theatr Gwaun in Fishguard will hold its first Welsh Film Festival from 23–25 October, with a programme including archive shorts, new releases and a screening of Twin Town followed by a Q&A with director Kevin Allen.

Among the oldest films on show will be Arthur Cheetham’s Children on the Beach, filmed on Rhyl Sands in 1898.

It forms part of a seven-film archive programme on Sunday 25 October, featuring silent cinema, early footage of the Welsh football team, documentary and animation, including work by Joanna Quinn.

The festival’s Your Films, Our Screen event on Saturday will showcase shorts selected through an open call to filmmakers across Wales.

The free gala screening includes work by two students at Pembrokeshire College, with a programme spanning drama, documentary, personal stories and art film.

Simon Coton, a Theatr Gwaun board member and festival organiser, said: “To be able to show audiences one of the earliest pieces of film made in Wales, dating all the way back to 1898, while also giving our cinema screen to some of the newest work being made by filmmakers in Wales today really sums up what this festival is about.”

The weekend opens at 7.30pm on Friday 23 October with Marc Evans’ Welsh-language film Effi o Blaenau, starring Leisa Gwenllian and Tom Rhys Harries.

Based on Gary Owen’s monodrama Iphigenia in Splott, the film follows a young woman’s life and is rated 15.

Twin Town, rated 18, will be shown on Saturday evening after winning a public vote to select the festival’s Audience Choice film. Jamie Rees will host the Q&A with Allen after the screening.

Sunday’s programme begins with a free screening of the Oscar-nominated Hedd Wyn, alongside John Parr’s 2025 short A Pack of Five and a live performance by the Fishguard and Goodwick Rugby Club Male Voice Choir.

The festival closes on Sunday evening with a screening of Helen Walsh’s On the Sea, set in a remote fishing community in north Wales.

Supported by Film Hub Wales, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, the event marks 130 years since the first known film was shot in Wales in 1896.

Tickets and the full programme are available at theatrgwaun.com.

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