'Powerful' film shot in Pembrokeshire gets premiere date

Western Telegraph

11-05-2025

Featuring two local actors, it focusses on a famous Welsh poet, Hedd Wyn, a pacifist, who was killed in Flanders on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.
The film, A Pack of Five, presents five soldiers sharing a joke, a smoke, and a moment of peace from the battlefields of the Somme.
It explores the effects of battle on two young soldiers and their battle-hardened mentors, through their responses to Hedd Wyn's poetry and their own memories.
Two of the soldiers in A Pack of Five are played by Rhodri Evan of Efailwen and Rhodri Lewis of Tegryn. (Image: Delyth Lloyd)
It was filmed in the north Pembrokeshire village of Tegryn, where, said director John Parr, "the wildness of the wind and the grey skies while we were filming gives the film a special edge."
'Hedd Wyn's message of peace is more relevant than ever in today's world,' added Mr Parr, the Grammy-nominated artist and creator of the film.
'The small comfort of a pack of five cigarettes, gallows humour and soldiers' banter create a perfect setting for the quiet wisdom of his poetry – poetry which won him the highest accolade in Wales, the Chair in the National Eisteddfod, but he never lived to know it.
"The themes of his poems, written in Welsh, transcend any language barrier and the film aims to bring them to a wider audience.
"The wildness of the wind and the grey skies..gives the film a special edge." (Image: Simon Howlett)
"His is a voice and a message that should be heard today and always.'
The film is written and produced by BAFTA Cymru Qualifying Director John Parr and also produced by Simon Howlett and Delyth Lloyd.
It also features contributions from winning bards, Alan Llwyd and Ceri Wyn Jones, the Treorchy Male Voice Choir and the Harry Secombe Youth Musical Theatre Company.
It will be premiered at next month's Carmarthen Bay Film Festival on May 19 after which it will be available to the public.