Dartmouth Films is proud to announce the release of Dylan William’s heartwarming feature documentary Men Who Sing, a portrait of a Welsh male voice choir, which releases in cinemas and on Curzon Home Cinema on Friday, 5th November, 2021.
This humorous and melancholic portrait of a male voice choir begins when the filmmakers’ father, widower Ed, 90, sells the family home and arranges his own funeral. His only remaining solace is Tuesday night practice, but with an average age of 74 and suffering a hemorrhaging of the bass section his beloved choir is facing a crisis of its own. They must act or face extinction. So the hunt begins to find ‘brown-haired men’ in their 40s and 50s who can take the choir forward. As their search intensifies, we come closer to them. Whilst Ed finds new meaning, Merf deals with his own bad news by focusing on the Choirs revival and Gwyn laughs at his prostate cancer diagnosis and walks on the wing of a plane to raise money. Finally, they raise themselves and travel to Northern Ireland to perform for the first time in 20 years.
Director, Dylan Williams explained: “The story began when my father telephoned me for the first time since I had moved to Sweden 15 years earlier, to tell me that he had sold our family home and was busy throwing the majority of its contents into a hired skip. Upon my return to help him move, I found him preparing his funeral arrangements. Despite enjoying excellent health, he is nonetheless 90, and since the death of my mother he had felt increasingly isolated. The one notable outlier however was his beloved choir. For almost 70 years my father has been the bottom bass in the Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir, situated in the neglected former industrial area of North East Wales. I followed him to practice on the first night of my arrival and found myself faced with a room full of men that I have known since my childhood—all now in their eighties but still singing together. The decision to make a film came straight from my heart. It is a humorous melancholic tale that deals with loneliness, old age, as well as community and friendship as a group of proud choristers fight to find new blood to keep their beloved choir alive.”
CINEMAS
- From 05 November
- Bertha DocHouse, London
- Chapter, Cardiff
- Theatr Clwyd, Mold
- The Little Theatre Cinema, Bath
- Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge
- Crouch End Picturehouse
- Exeter Picturehouse
- Regal Picturehouse, Henley-on-Thames
- Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool
- Cinema City Picturehouse, Norwich
- Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford
- Harbour Lights Picturehouse, Southampton
- City Screen Picturehouse, York
- 17 November
- Pontio, Bangor
- 28–29 November
- Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard, N. Pembrokeshire
- 15–16 December
- Kinokulture, Oswestry
- 16 December
- Pavilions, Teignmouth
- 21 December
- Hull Independent Cinema
- 30 March
- Abergavenny Film Society
