Jury replaced at Welsh film festival

The jury for the Welsh film festival, the BAFTA Cymru Awards, has been replaced after deciding to withhold any presentation for Best Film this year on the grounds that the nominated films did not merit such an award. One, Solomon and Gaenor, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards ceremonies. Film producer Catrin Lewis-Defis told Thursday’s London Independent that none of the screenplays was “strong enough to make Best Film.” The jury’s decision prompted the event’s chairman, Emyr Daniel, to replace the jury with one chaired by himself. Lewis-Defis thereupon resigned from the Welsh BAFTA organization, telling the Independent: “The jury decided 4-1 to withhold the prize. To then create another jury and go against our initial decision is totally undemocratic.”