Creative writing lecturer’s first feature film premieres at Edinburgh International Film Festival

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The Library Suicides (Y Llyfrgell), an adaptation of Dr Fflur Dafydd’s award-winning novel, will get its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival later this month.

The film has also been nominated for two awards at the festival, Best British Feature, and Best Performance in a British Feature.

Set within the stately National Library of Wales, Y Llyfrgell is a stylish, playful and enjoyably offbeat Welsh-language thriller, starring Catrin Stewart (a cult figure from her role as Jenny in Doctor Who) as twin sister librarians Nan and Ana who plan revenge when their author mother commits suicide, with her final words suggesting her biographer murdered her.

Y Llyfrgell / The Library Suicides ‌Catrin Stewart stars as Nan and Ana in The Library Suicides

The cast also includes Ryland Teifi (35 Diwrnod, Tir), Sharon Morgan (Resistance, Torchwood) and Dyfan Dwyfor (Pride, Y Gwyll).

Award-winning Broadchurch, Doctor Who, and Happy Valley director Euros Lyn has directed Y Llyfrgell, his first feature film.

Fflur DafyddIn addition to her work as a creative writing lecturer in Swansea University’s department of English Language and Literature, Dr Dafydd (left) is also a screenwriter, producer, singer-songwriter and multi award-winning novelist. Y Llyfrgell, on which this film is based, won her the Daniel Owen Memorial Prize at the 2009 National Eisteddfod, “I first envisaged this idea as a film, but ended up writing a book instead. Bringing these characters to the big screen feels like a dream come true.”

The Library Suicides is the third film to go into production from Ffilm Cymru Wales emerging talent scheme, Cinematic. Set up in partnership with the BFI Film Fund, BBC Films, Creative Skillset, Edicis, Soda Pictures and S4C, the scheme supports emerging filmmaking talent from Wales. The Library Suicides is the first of these to be filmed in the Welsh language.

The Library Suicides will be released in cinemas in August.

For tickets to view the film’s world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, click here.