New Voices from Wales

Documentary series which showcases short films made by talented new film-makers as part of It's My Shout training scheme.

Nineteen-year-old Liam Roche has dwarfism, so does his dad Patrick. When Patrick was Liam's age, he was an up-and-coming drummer who went on to tour the world. Now in his late fifties and suffering with severe arthritis, Pat hasn't drummed for ten years. Can Liam surprise his dad by getting his old band together without him knowing and give Pat ‘One Last Gig'?

A new documentary series which showcases short films made by talented new film-makers as part of It's My Shout training scheme.

Shirley Walker has been cutting hair for almost 70 years in the once vibrant mining community of Cefn Forest, and knows generations of families in the area. The treasured photographs on the shop wall are like chapters in the village history. They show a time when the village life was dominated by groups of men getting together from sports teams to brass band to homing pigeons. How things have changed.

Miners used to walk up the Black Path from their gruelling shift straight to Shirley's (and her father who barbered before her) for a short back and sides, then out to one of the local clubs - most of which are now in decline.

Present day customers, can see their forefathers on the wall, and hear stories about them from Shirley. She cut everyone's hair, and still does. There is a deep seam of loyalty from these customers who travel as far as a 200-mile round trip, and locals who now live abroad still pop in for a haircut when they come home to visit.

Two of her customers - ex miners Ray Pope and Nat Thomas - revisit the fast-deteriorating Miner's Institute which was once the heartbeat of the community. Emotions run high as they remember the ‘Stute' as it was in its heyday and see the extent to which the legacy of those hard-working miners is sadly slipping away.

This is a lovesong to those men who worked underground, to Shirley, the keeper of their social and personal histories, and to the village of Cefn Fforest. It's an acknowledgement that though the community has changed, and is changing there is still one place where the heart of the past is still palpably beating.

Documentary series showcasing short films made by talented new film-makers as part of It's My Shout training scheme.

Alexandria Riley is a successful actress on stage and screen from Newport. Most recently she has appeared in the TV shows In My Skin and The Tuckers (now commissioned for a series). But there is something niggling. Something unsettling. Something she comes face to face with every time someone asks her – 'Yes, but where are you really from?' It's about the colour of her skin. It's about being mixed race. And it's about how that squares with being Welsh.

The film is her personal journey to explore her identity. She talks to other mixed race people and how they have come to terms with who they are, and she hopes that a DNA test may help her to resolve her uncertain feelings – the 'knot' inside her as she describes it. The number of people in Wales from a mixed race background is growing. Alexandria wonders how they connect to the images of Welsh heritage presented to them – and when will that question 'where you really from?' stop being asked. Director Gavin Porter himself comes from a mixed-heritage background in Cardiff.

Documentary series showcasing short films made by talented new film-makers as part of It's My Shout training scheme.

Some have slept in doorways, experienced ‘sofa surfing', or struggled with challenges to their mental health. All of them have one experience in common - family breakdown. The young people in this film have found temporary supported accommodation at Llys y Gwynt Housing Project in Holyhead. It provides a safe place for people who are or are at risk of being homeless with the aim of helping them to move on and live independently.

However, being in the hostel can itself add to the stigma they experience. They feel they are often judged negatively by their local community and by wider society. ‘Tramp' , ‘dirty', ‘low life', ‘scum', ‘druggy', are some of the names they have been called. They are told ‘they deserve to be homeless', ‘they're scroungers'; and ‘It's their own fault'.

In this documentary, the young people invite us to see the world from their perspective, inviting viewers into the hostel and sharing their stories, in their own words. Through intimate interviews, they talk about their early lives, how they became homeless and how the negative stigma they experience makes them feel.