John Hefin(1941-2012)
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
One of the great talents of British television, John Hefin's work is
largely overlooked by critics and historians outside his native Wales,
where he served a long and highly successful stint as head of drama for
the BBC. In 1983 he oversaw the first drama series to be shot entriely
in Welsh, a significant milestone in the campaign to preserve the
language (which came very close to extinction in the 1970s, but is now
spoken by nearly a quarter of the population.) In the early 90s he was
instrumental in founding the Welsh Film Commission, which he also
managed for a time, after which he partially retired in order to help
create a course in film and television at the University of Wales, in
his home town of Aberystwyth. He has recently begun a long-awaited
return to film and television directing.
