Filmmaker Statement

Pen Mari (Mare’s Head) merges the Welsh folk tradition of Mari Lwyd with elements of the Cornish winter solstice festival, Montol. Based on a true story, the film interplays the banal and the surreal, setting a historic folkloric ritual in the social fringes of contemporary rural Britain. Having been to many of these processions, I have always been struck by this intersection; watching a cloaked horse’s skull parade around a pub whilst people try to eat their Sunday dinner, or a man ordering a kebab dressed as the Green Man. For me the story of Pen Mari is an extension of this - an exploration of life, death, rebirth and small towns.