A film festival which once boasted Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Sheen among its high-profile supporters has come under fire over allegations of minimal publicity, poor screening facilities and a shoddy judging process.
The Swansea Bay film festival charged film-makers to enter their movies, but organiser Binda Singh allegedly spent little on publicity, programmes or film information. Local politicians are now asking where public money went.
David Phillips, leader of the opposition Labour group on Swansea council, told BBC Radio Wales' Eye on Wales programme: "(Mr Singh) had a considerable amount of public authority support, both directly in kind, and in money terms for things like his dinner and so on, and the involvement of local authorities and other institutions in giving his film festival credibility. And in Swansea's terms, this was a disaster, and yet nobody seems to be concerned about finding out why or, indeed, asking what happened to all the money that went into it."
Zeta-Jones quit as patron of the festival in April. Sheen was formerly vice-president of the event, but severed all ties in March. Last month, the festival staged its 2011 edition in nearby Port Talbot after Swansea council refused to allow its venues to be used.
Singh also runs festivals in Egypt, Australia, Thailand and St Lucia in the Caribbean, as well as elsewhere in England and Ireland. Canadian film-maker Rhonda Zabinsky told the Eye on Wales programme she felt "duped" after travelling thousands of miles to South Africa to attend a screening of her film at one of Singh's events, only to find that she was expected to drum up publicity herself.
"I have never had an experience like this anywhere in my entire life," she said. "I travelled tens of thousands of miles to go to this film festival – I spent a lot of money to come to South Africa from Canada, and it was a bit of a shocker and an eye-opener. I feel absolutely duped; I feel suckered."
Meanwhile, California film-makers Steve Rosen and Terri DeBono have made their own film about their experiences attending the 2010 Swansea Bay festival, where their film Boyhood Shadows: I Swore I'd Never Tell was nominated for best documentary. Titled Looking for an Audience, the film details their distress at arriving in south Wales to discover that their film had no specific screening time and the main audience were other film-makers with entries at the event.
Film-maker Paul O'Connor has detailed his concerns over Singh's festival activities on his Undercurrent blog. Singh did not respond to requests for an interview.
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