About

A screening of the feature film "Scopophobia" followed by a Q&A with writer-director Aled Owen and lead actress Catrin Jones. Catrin Jones is a Swansea local, and the film was produced on a shoestring budget, shot at Swansea's Bay Studios in 2022.

This project was a real labour of love, and, if nothing else, proves that West Wales is a place that nourishes talent and encourages ambition against all odds.

The title, "Scopophobia", refers to the fear of being watched. The film follows Rhiannon (Swansea's Catrin Jones) who suffers from the titular condition as a result of deep guilt, having been peer-pressured by her friends to steal money from their local steel mill as a teenager. Ten years later, the film finds Rhiannon reuniting with these friends, played by Carmarthen's Bethany Williams-Potter, Bridgend's Emma Stacey, and Tenby's Ellen Jane-Thomas. This time, the place is a ghost town, and the girls pressure Rhiannon into taking them back into the now-abandoned mill, to retrieve the stolen money. Rhiannon hid the cash box within the mill's walls, but when they enter the mill to find it, they get locked inside, and there's someone strange inside the mill with them. Perhaps their past has come back to haunt them, or perhaps it's just their guilty conscience playing tricks.

'Scopophobia' was produced on a shoestring budget made up entirely of the cast and crew's own funding, and two online crowd-funding campaigns (on Indiegogo and Greenlit respectively). Production began with a 5-day shoot in Carmarthen, in March 2022. These were predominantly the film's cheapest scenes (dialogue scenes, free of any action or effects), and the footage was then used to raise more funds for another 6-day shoot in October 2022, this time taking place in Swansea's Bay Studios and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. Stunt/Fight Coordinator Kevin McCurdy and Special Effects Prosthetics Artist Ellie Baldwin joined the production at this stage. With two-thirds of the film shot and edited, another crowdfunding campaign allowed the cast and crew to complete filming with one final 4-day shoot in March 2023, in the factories of Middlesbrough. Within 15 days across 1 year, the film's production was completed.

Aled Owen and Tom Rawding met at the Northern Film School (Leeds Beckett University) and both graduated in 2019. This project began when the Covid-19 pandemic caused Aled's first film industry job to end prematurely. Worried that this would set him back to square one, Aled and Tom decided to create an opportunity for themselves. The script's story was conceived by Aled while walking around Carmarthen during his allowed outdoor hours throughout lockdown. Seeing his hometown so empty and lifeless inspired the plot of 'Scopophobia'

Swansea's own Morgan Thomas worked as the film's Make-up Artist while Rhodri Miles acted in the role of P.C. Adams.

Despite its financial limitations, Melyn Pictures is proud to have completed its production of 'Scopophobia', a true passion project for all involved. It has screened at prestigious horror film festivals around the world, and has since acquired worldwide distribution under the new title "The Mill Killers". This screening at the Taliesin Arts Centre will mark the final time audiences will be able to see the film under its original title of "Scopophobia".