Iris Prize: Chuck Chuck Baby up for LGBTQI+ film award

Director Janis Pugh says the backdrop of north Wales is perfect for story telling

A film dubbed the new Twin Town and shot in just 26 days has been nominated for an LGBTQ+ Iris Prize award.

Chuck Chuck Baby is set in a chicken factory in Flintshire where a woman meets a schoolfriend she once loved.

Director Janis Pugh said it "celebrates the north Walian woman", and showed "women do not lose anything" as they age.

Organiser Berwyn Rowlands said he thinks the film could become one of Wales' cult classics.

The awards in the 17th annual Iris Prize Festival will be given on Saturday, with the event running until Sunday.

Its aim is to "challenge discrimination on the grounds of sexuality and promote the benefits of an equitable and diverse society".

• Twin Town follow-up shot on phones premieres

• Film producer says county has so much to offer

• Welsh filmmakers shortlisted for LGBT+ prize

Chuck Chuck Baby has been nominated among 11 others for the best feature film, and both Annabel Scholey and Louise Brealey are in the running for best performance in a female role.

Chuck Chuck Baby follows a woman who works in a chicken factory in Flintshire

Twin Town, a dark comedy set in Swansea in 1997 and centred around the Lewis twins - played by real-life brothers Rhys and Llyr Ifans - showcased the Welsh working class, as does Chuck Chuck Baby.

The comparison was a flattering one for the new film's creator, who said: "I can only hope it does so well".

For her, the film is a love story in every sense: the main characters may fall in love but the friendships are full of it.

She said making it was tough, with Covid at one point "bringing everything to a standstill", and that as a low budget indie film "it was always going to be tough to get the money".

She said she was surprised when financiers asked her to lower the ages of the women to make the film more marketable, but said they "stuck to their guns".

"There's no story if we do that," she said.

"The whole thing was about celebrating women at that age, and how we don't lose anything as we get older."

"I felt the place was very cinematic," says Janis Pugh, front right, with cast on the set of Chuck Chuck Baby

She said the backdrop of north Wales is not something she ever wanted to compromise on and said it was rich in material for stories.

"I have a great love for the landscape, and I find the industrial north Wales very much in tune with my creative spirit," she said.

"I think it kind of goes back to my childhood. I felt the place was very cinematic. It feels very much that it stands on its own.

"It is gritty... it's about working class people," says Berwyn Rowlands, director of the Iris Prize

"It's the border of England, and it's not quite there but not quite here.

"And it was a town built for factory workers and the landscape around there is just very much part of my character and a character in the film as well."

While festival director Berwyn Rowlands thinks it could be as successful as Twin Town, he also said the stories were very different - most notably, that Chuck Chuck Baby is all about women.

"I'm sure some academics would draw some parallels between the two... this is a female-dominated story.

"But it is gritty. It's about working class people... they work in a chicken factory in Flint and any distraction from the experience of the chicken factory is encouraged.

"This is where the film comes into comes into its own."