Women’s History Month: Rachel Dax

Biography

After two years working in retail, Rachel trained as a Religious Education Teacher, but became restless and in 1999 moved to Cardiff, where she began pursuing a career in Drama by attending an array of performance based courses, and doing TV and Film walk on/acting roles. In this period Rachel also began writing novels and short stories. (Her fifth book will be published this year.)

Since 2014, Rachel has been teaching an array of Film and Creative Writing courses at both University of South Wales and Cardiff University. Rachel’s professional films include Caravan Sight, Planet Love, A Delicate Love and her latest film, Time & Again (2019), starring Dame Sian Phillips and Brigit Forsyth. Time & Again has been shown at over 50 film festivals and won 13 awards. It was broadcast twice on BBC Wales and was on BBC iPlayer for a year.

When was the first time you realised you wanted to make films?

I first realised I wanted to make films rather than just act in films, when I went back to university in my early 30s to do a BA in Drama (Theatre & Media). I took a film module as part of that course and fell in love with the medium straight away. Until then I had only wanted to write and act. But filmmaking soon became my greatest passion of all!

What was the last project you worked on / made?

The last film project I made was Time & Again (2019) starring Dame Sian Phillips and Brigit Forsyth. This film is about two women who meet again in a care home, sixty years after their relationship broke up due to societal pressures. It has done tremendously well having been screened at 52 film festivals and won 13 awards – including Best Short Film at Cardiff International Film Festival.

What are you up to now? What is the next project you’re working on?

Due to the pandemic this is most uncertain. I was aiming to make the feature sequel to Time & Again in late 2020 or early 2021 but that didn’t come to pass (although it might emerge this year in another medium instead). I therefore will most likely make another short film in August and then see how things are looking. I have many scripts to choose from as I am a prolific writer, but I suspect the one I wrote in the last two weeks will be the one I pursue as it has my passion and focus right now.

Useful links:

Check out the many other female filmmakers telling unique stories in Wales here.

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