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During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), reporting cultural coincidences has always played a major role for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, and now this is emphasised by news that the title of a film which was a main event at last night’s Oscars echoes a major song supporting Welsh nationhood.
The producers can’t have known, but the title of a film promoting one nation echoes a song which promotes another.
“I’m Still Here” in the Best Picture category at last night’s Oscars, emphasises recognition of the (sometimes grisly) past of the Brazilian nation.
It was actually won by Anora.
“Yma o Hyd”/”Still Here” is an important folk song by a famous nationalist emphasising recognition of the tenaciousness of the Welsh nation and language.
This seems like a coincidence too far, but believe me it is real.
Let’s start with the film.
“I’m Still Here” came out in November and is one of the most-watched films in Brazilian history.
It was also the first South American film to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars.
Fernanda Torres, who plays the stoical lead, was also in the running for Best Actress.
The winner was Mikey Madison of Anora as well.
Walter Salles, the Director, declared he wanted to “tell a story that felt essential” at a time of democratic backsliding, to bring Brazil out of its “amnesia”, and the film prompted a new reckoning with Brazil’s violent past.
Then there is the Welsh song.
“Yma o Hyd“/”Still Here” is a Welsh-language folk song by Dafydd Iwan, which has gained enormous popularity at cultural and sporting events in Wales.
By the time Iwan wrote “Yma o Hyd“, he had been imprisoned four times for his activism, and has said he had been left “feeling demoralised” by events such as the rejection of a devolved Welsh government in the 1979 referendum and by the political ideology of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
It was against this background that Iwan said he wanted to write a song that would “raise the spirits”.
The song draws parallels between what he saw as the contemporary risks to Wales, and the historical threats the Welsh people had suffered, confronted, and survived.
Iwan said that he hoped the song would “remind people we still speak Welsh against all odds to show we are still here”.
A song can promote one kind of nationalism, a film can back another kind.
It just goes to show that certain things are always ‘still here’!
The memories of Phil’s, astonishing award-winning career in journalism (monitoring some extraordinary coincidences) while he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Tomorrow – how a huge attack on the BBC by a television star after the Wynne Evans scandal, has once AGAIN highlighted the corporation’s refusal to answer questions over how many programmes cannot now be transmitted, especially as they were happy to talk to other journalists in Wales.
