04 April 2014

The emotional film-documentary Gerallt has won the main prize at the 2014 Celtic Media Festival.

The Spirit of the Festival is the event's highest honour given to a television programme, series or film of outstanding quality which has been wholly or largely made in a Celtic language.

The production by Cwmni Da has already won in the Arts category in festival's first Awards ceremony on Wednesday, 2 April.

The film, first broadcast in March 2013, is an honest and insightful documentary about one of Wales's most popular poets, Gerallt Lloyd Owen, which reveals a private and enigmatic character.

Through a series of extended interviews over a period of time, exclusive access to his home and interviews with members of his family, this film-documentary reveals another side to his public persona.

S4C Director of Content, Dafydd Rhys, said, "Congratulations to the whole team at Cwmni Da on their award today. Gerallt was one of the highlights of the 2013 schedule. This confirms that S4C's documentaries are among the best of the Celtic nations and highlights the talent within the production sector in Wales."

As he accepted the award in the Arts category on the festival's first day on Wednesday, 2 April, the film's director Guto Williams said, "It was an honour to be able to make it. Gerallt has since retreated from public life and it was an honour to be able to document him in the first place. He is a man who lives for his poetry, and we felt that this film is an important document which had to be made."

The annual festival is being held in St Ives, Cornwall this year on 2-4 April.

In a special edition of Heno on S4C Monday night, 7 April 7.00, Aneirin Karadog and Gwenno Saunders will present a look at the events of the festival which celebrates the best of broadcasting, on TV and radio, in the Celtic nations – Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, Brittany, Isle of Man and Scotland.

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