EVENT
Noson Sinema - Scopophobia (Gyda sesiwn H+A cast a criw / With Cast and Crew Q+A)
31 October 2024
19:00
Yr Egin
‘Scopophobia’ is a 100-minute, Welsh-made (English-language) horror feature film. The film was written and directed by Carmarthen’s own Aled Owen. Aled Owen also produced the film, alongside Portsmouth’s Tom Rawding, as the Carmarthen-based production company Melyn Pictures Ltd, which was established in 2021.
The title, “Scopophobia”, refers to the fear of being watched. The film follows Rhiannon
(Swansea’s Catrin Jones) who suffers from the titular condition as a result of deep guilt, having
been peer-pressured by her friends to steal money from their local steel mill as a teenager. Ten
years later, the film finds Rhiannon reuniting with these friends, played by Carmarthen’s Bethany
Williams-Potter, Bridgend’s Emma Stacey, and Tenby’s Ellen Jane-Thomas. This time, the place
is a ghost town, and the girls pressure Rhiannon into taking them back into the now-abandoned
mill, to retrieve the stolen money. Rhiannon hid the cash box within the mill’s walls, but when
they enter the mill to find it, they get locked inside, and there’s someone strange inside the mill
with them. Perhaps their past has come back to haunt them, or perhaps it’s just their guilty
conscience playing tricks.
‘Scopophobia’ was produced on a shoestring budget made up entirely of the cast and crew’s
own funding, and two online crowd-funding campaigns (on Indiegogo and Greenlit respectively).
Production began with a 5-day shoot in Carmarthen, in March 2022. These were predominantly
the film’s cheapest scenes (dialogue scenes, free of any action or effects), and the footage was
then used to raise more funds for another 6-day shoot in October 2022, this time taking place in
Swansea’s Bay Studios and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. Stunt/Fight Coordinator
Kevin McCurdy and Special Effects Prosthetics Artist Ellie Baldwin joined the production at this
stage. With two-thirds of the film shot and edited, another crowdfunding campaign allowed the
cast and crew to complete filming with one final 4-day shoot in March 2023, in the factories of
Middlesbrough. Within 15 days across 1 year, the film’s production was completed.
Aled Owen and Tom Rawding met at the Northern Film School (Leeds Beckett University) and
both graduated in 2019. This project began when the Covid-19 pandemic caused Aled’s first film
industry job to end prematurely. Worried that this would set him back to square one, Aled and
Tom decided to create an opportunity for themselves.
The script’s story was conceived by Aled
while walking around Carmarthen during his allowed outdoor hours throughout lockdown.
Seeing his hometown so empty and lifeless inspired the plot of ‘Scopophobia’.
Follwoing the screening there will be a special Q+A session with cast and crew.
Age - 15+