WRITER | DIRECTORTRAGIC COMEDY | SHORT FILM
About the Film
Logline
When his dream business comes under threat from a predatory loan shark, Welsh restaurateur Dick must take drastic action to protect his beloved but tacky Spanish tapas cafe.
Synopsis
In this tragic comedy, naive Welshman Dick runs a struggling Spanish cafe on the coast of North Wales. When his predatory moneylender Gary gives Dick an ultimatum, the daydreaming restaurateur tries to wipe off his debts with an impassioned meal. However, it soon becomes clear that Dick must take drastic action or lose his beloved tapas business forever.
Background
Inspired by the substantial increase in the use of illegal money-lenders in Wales and across the UK, Sharks in Colwyn Bay explores this growing issue through a darkly comedic lens. Jonathan taps into his roots of growing up moving back and forth between Spain and the UK, removed from his Welsh family, writer/director, to explore a character feeling such dissonance at a later age. With the UK increasingly isolated, Jonathan found himself enamoured with a character trying to bring the Mediterranean sunshine to the coast of Wales, however deluded he may be.
Key Bios
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Michael Christopher
Michael (Dick) has been a professional actor for over thirty five years. He has played a wide variety of characters on stage, in film, television, radio and musical theatre. He is always keen to work alongside the next generation of filmmakers.
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Sean Jones
Sean (Gary) was born and bred in North Wales. In his 30 years as an actor he has worked extensively in theatre and screen. He's perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mickey in Willy Russell's hugely successful “Blood Brothers”.
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Jonathan Williams
Jonathan (Writer/Director) is an English-Welsh filmmaker based near London, and a recent graduate from the London Film School.
Jonathan started filmmaking at a young age, creating stop-motion videos since the age of nine. With a background in English Literature and a strong interest in politics, Jonathan is interested in seeing social issues and the state of the nation expressed in genre film.
Frequently asked questions
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Sharks in Colwyn Bay was inspired by the huge increase in predatory money-lending since the Covid pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. The BBC reports that by December 2020, nine million people had to borrow more money than usual. The idea of someone fighting back after being backed into a corner was alluring, especially with a character who’s previously so in denial about the danger he faces.
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We wanted to pull the rug out from the audience, luring them in with something light before revealing the sadness underneath. Dick as a character is not exactly on the knife’s edge of this societal problem. As someone who inherited a business from his father, he always has the option to sell up and move on. But to do that would be to admit he’s failed. I like the conflict that generates, where you’ve got a systemic problem intersecting with a personal one: there’s broad economic pressures at play, but Dick bears some responsibility for his predicament. That kind of character allows us to wheel this Trojan Horse of a serious issue into a more lighthearted film.
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Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (2000) was a big inspiration. I love the idea of taking that sort of conflict but plucking the protagonist from something more like a Coen Brothers feature, such as Fargo (1996), someone who’s totally clueless and in over his head. The series Better Call Saul (2015-2022) was also a big inspiration for the tone, with its sad clown of a central character.
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Putting the camera operator in the bin was a highlight. I had to ask so sheepishly if we could put her in there but she was so up for it. We built a little ramp inside so when Dick threw a wet fish in it wouldn’t hit her. It always gave us a laugh, walking from the monitor to the bins just to see crew hiding in there.
Another was shooting the beach scene at low tide. The tide up there can come in and out really quickly. With every shot we ran further back to try and beat the tide. Maybe ten minutes after we finished shooting, that whole location was underwater.
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It’s all about character. The very first concept I sketched out for the film, was that of a chuffed, sunburnt, middle-aged man in a tropical shirt. Everything came out of that: what kind of business does he run? What makes him tick? It really clicked when we hit upon his underlying irrational hatred of Fish & Chips. Dick is extravagant and dreams big, he resents his dad’s legacy as having served something he considers so bland. For me, that’s when it all came into focus, and the threat of losing his dream tapas restaurant became so much more catastrophic.
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They were fantastic. Michael (Dick) was wonderful, always brought ideas to a scene and found some real inspiration for the character. Sean (Gary) was similarly great, often putting a subtle spin on a line that I never considered. The way they embodied the characters was pretty stunning, I was lucky to work with them.
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It grew out of my distance from two competing elements of my upbringing: my Welsh heritage and moving to Spain for a number of years of my childhood. I wanted to channel that into a character who’s searching for an identity, one who has a real chip on his shoulder about the quiet town he’s grown up in, and the adoration he thinks he’d get as a “cultured” businessman. His perspective on Spain draws from my own, from a place of love but clearly not terribly authentic, Spain filtered through the experience of a Brit. Dick’s cafe-restaurant, La Marea, is his sunny Spanish oasis on the grey coast of North Wales.
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The shoot was a real challenge. We had under five days to film, which was a tight squeeze for a project like this. When you’re pulling twelve hour days on little sleep it’s easy to lose momentum. But seeing what great work the cast and crew are putting in always energises you again, it’s like having a shot of espresso.
Key Production Credits
Production Company
The London Film School
Writer / Director Jonathan Williams
Producers Sid Menon, Anaïs Lapeyre
Executive Producer William Raillon
Associate Producers Hayden Eddings, Nymeria Productions
Director of Photography Maxwell Cutting
Production Designer Ben Lyons
Film & Sound Editor Tom Chambers
Sound Recordist Zhijie Cao
Composer Guillermo Pita
Country of Production United Kingdom
Mixed at Twickenham Film Studios
Date of Completion 2024
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Runtime 16:24
Genre Tragic Comedy
