New Welsh features in development with Ffilm Cymru Wales

This year’s slate of films showcases an exciting variety of voices from Wales’ creative community telling compelling stories in multiple languages across animation, documentary and live-action fiction. 

Introducing the new projects to Ffilm Cymru Wales’ development slate, Jessica Cobham-Dineen, Manager of Development & Production, says: “This latest set of awards highlights the innovation and talent in Wales. Each story is offering something new, whether it be a perspective, a voice, or a style. We are especially pleased to see filmmakers Nia Alavezos, Emily Burnett, Ioan Morris and Ray Wilson develop their first features after progressing from our Beacons short film scheme.”

Ffilm Cymru Wales’ 2025 Development funding has been awarded to:

A Picture Tells a Thousand Lies
Documentary. The cultural betrayal of the image as a source of truth, and other fabrications.
Director: Rob Alexander
Producers: Rob Alexander, Ian Davies, Ari Matikainen

Arcana
Eco-Thriller. When a sceptical teen attends a spiritual fête, she encounters ‘tarot’ characters, who blur the lines of reality, challenging her indifference to the town’s future.
Writer-Director: Katie Bonham
Producer: Ray Wilson
Executive Producer: Samantha O’Rourke

Are You Nervous?
Drama. Sasha, a loud-mouthed fourteen-year-old and her Nan, a no nonsense fifty-eight-year-old, both embark on a confusing and vulnerable journey of claiming their sexuality.
Writer: Bethan Marlow
Director: Amy Hodge
Producer: Oriane Pick

Bad Form
Drama. With her teenage daughter being relentlessly bullied for her appearance, her mother - an esteemed plastic surgeon - finds herself in a complex moral dilemma. This is a proof-of-concept to support the development of Alys Metcalf’s feature project Little Rock. 
Writer-Director: Alys Metcalf
Producer: Andrew Bendel
Cast: Jamie Bamber and Kerry Norton

Beach Body
Comedy Drama. A mermaid, stuck in her human body at a party full of grief and drunken denial, tries to find a cure for the human condition. 
Writer: Toby Parker Rees 
Producers: Ray Wilson, Katie Bonham
Executive Producer: Samantha O’Rourke

Brando's Bride
Drama. In 1950s Hollywood, a young Indian starlet marries the world's most famous film star, but her fairytale life implodes when she is exposed as a fraud.
Writer: Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti
Director: Aisling Walsh
Producers: Bethan Jones, Sarah Broughton

Cranogwen
Romantic biopic. In Victorian Wales, a courageous young woman breaks with tradition and fights for her love and voice in a society that deems both radical. 
Writer: Casi Wyn
Producer: Catrin Cooper

Diwedd Y Byd
Welsh-language horror comedy. A profligate mother and her son try to reconcile, but zombies come between them.
Writer: Rolant Tomos

Ghosts Of Yesterday
Magical realist animation. Would you risk it all if you could travel back in time and speak with someone from your past?
Writer-Director: Nia Alavezos
Producer: Allissoon Lockhart

Grown Girl
Coming-of-age drama. With a shared love of old Hollywood movies, two Welsh 'Black girls' navigate adolescence, sex, love and their unique friendship in White middle-class suburbia.
Writer-Director: Emily Burnett
Producer: Nan Davies

Hollywood Ending
Comedy. The true story of a film school student’s short film accidentally makes a school cleaner famous, but while the world and the filmmaker crave a Hollywood-rags-to-riches story, she’s content exactly where she is.
Writer-Director: Sara Sugarman

I’r Gwyllt
Welsh-language fantasy. A coming-of-age fantasy blending Celtic-inspired folklore, magic, and heart in a visually stunning tale of loss and renewal.  
Writer: Brynach Higginson
Producer: Catrin Cooper

Iya
Multi-language drama. A teenage girl befriends an injured soldier in the wilderness of a war-torn area of Cameroon and finds sanctuary from war until a dangerous stranger sparks suspicion, jealousy, prejudice and violence.
Writers: Eric Ngalle Charles, Greg Lewis 

Kuji
Drama. The remarkable true story of Matthew Bevan - “KUJI”- the Welsh teenager who hacked the Pentagon looking for evidence of extra-terrestrials and became an FBI fugitive.
Writer: Roger Williams
Producer: Kate Cook
Executive Producers: Nicola Pearcey, Bruce Goodison

Marmalade Is Missing
Animated fantasy. A nightclub owner attempts to sabotage his competitors by kidnapping their star.
Margo Monroe and her charismatic friends must follow clues to save the day.
Writer: Sam Beckbessinger
Director: James Nutting
Producers: Amy Morris, Glen Biseker  

Private Dai
Comedy noir. When ex-prisoner turned private investigator David (Dai) Pennoyer returns to his hometown, his past soon catches up with him - in more ways than one.
Writer: Ioan Morris
Producer: Owen Lloyd Richards

White Out
Eco-adventure. An odyssey to uncover the forgotten tracks of Matthew Henson, the black explorer who discovered the north pole in 1909 and quietly changed our world forever.  
Writer: Richard Parks
Producer: Jasper Warry

Ffilm Cymru Wales’ support guides writers, directors and producers through the development process, from treatment to final draft and financing, with tailored advice and up to £50,000 of funding. The fund combines National Lottery funds delegated via the Arts Council of Wales and the British Film Institute via BFI NETWORK.