Context
We entered Focus Wales Film Festival and their Welsh and international short film competition with our first independent horror short film, Control Room. For the first time this year, all selected films were eligible for a BAFTA Cymru nomination. We were delighted to win the ‘Best Welsh Film, Narrative Film’ award. Since its inception, Focus Wales Film Festival has been held in Wrexham, the home of the well-known Football club since it’s takeover by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Response
“WE WON!!! FOCUS Wales Film Festivals Best Welsh Film, Narrative Film is officially Control Room, our first independent film and festival submission at Black Swan Productions. So proud of the cast and crew involved for their hard work in bringing this together. I self-funded this film around the pandemic with a chunk of my savings, and although life and business have constantly tried getting in the way of finishing it off, we’re super excited about how it’s come together and what’s next to come."
Pictured: Haydn Wakeling 🎬 (Producer/Editor), Jacob Hodges (Writer/Director), Glyn Rhys-James and Ellis Walker (Music, Post Audio)
Story
Singer/songwriter Eli Fretter’s manager, Gill, has booked him into a state of the art studio space, in an attempt to encourage him to leave his traditional sensibilities and penchant for acoustic music and analog recording techniques behind, instead taking his place in the digital landscape of modern, electronic, music. The night before his booking, Eli finds himself stranded in the studio with the strange receptionist, who insists that, with nowhere else to go, he spend the night in one of their live-rooms. Things take a surreal and nightmarish turn for Eli as reality appears to bend and distort, transporting him to-and-fro from the studio to a mysterious music venue and eventually to a dungeon, followed by a monstrous cloaked figure. Able to trust neither the eerie receptionist nor his controlling manager Gill, Eli discovers an otherworldly connection between his rapidly mutating body and the studio’s electronic equipment, which builds into a shocking climax that goes out with a flash.
