Audio Visual - Owen Sheers - Resistance

Owen Sheers is by now a well-regarded writer with a prolific output ranging from radio plays to novels, poetry to non fiction. But now his first novel, Resistance, has been turned into a film and he spoke with Francesca Rhydderch about that transformation, how he collaborated with director and co-writer Amit Gupta, and what processes took place to create the screenplay. The event was organised and put on by Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

In the recording you can hear excerpts from the film and Planet would like to thank Big Rich Films, Square One Entertainment and Metrodome Distribution for their kind co-operation in allowing us to include those. Planet would also like to thank Francesca and Owen for allowing us to intrude on their conversation.

During the recording there are questions asked at the end and as the microphone was not aimed toward the speakers their voices are not audible but below are transcripts for those questions. Either start using the player below or click on the image (right) to start in a new window or right-click to save the podcast to your mp3 player.

1: I was just wondering, in the process of adaptation, did you find yourself consciously or unconsciously influenced by different films?

2: I was going to ask, obviously the journey from page to screen is often quite a long one, I was wondering if you could give us a sense of chronology, not so much from when you wrote the book, but when it became apparent that the book could become a film.

3: As you'revery keen to have German with subtitles for authenticity's sake, I was wondering whether Welsh was used at all? (paraphrased)

4: Do you think the experience of having written this film will affect the way you write in the future?

5: Even though a novel is seen as something better than a film, maybe you might start a scriptwriting career? (paraphrased)

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