Project Detail

The Testimony of Taliesin Jones

Synopsis

When Tal Jones' mother leaves home to live with her hairdresser, the 12-year-old boy is left to deal with his uncommunicative father (Jonathan Pryce) and bitter older brother (Matthew Rhys), as well as all the other problems of growing up in a Welsh farming community, such as bullying, piano lessons and warts.

The Testimony Of Taliesin Jones takes an unexpected turn, when Tal finds out his elderly piano teacher Billy Evans (Ian Bannen, in one of his last roles before his death last year) is a faith healer. Billy heals Tal's warts, inspiring him to form his own gang, the Believers, who land in trouble when they try to cure a school mate with diabetes. The result is a story about God, belief and miracles.

Based on Welsh writer Rhidian Brook's first novel, which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1997 and was shortlisted for Welsh Novel of the Year, the material had particular appeal for director Martin Duffy, who had worked with healer Finbarr Nolan on his autobiography Seventh Son Of A

Seventh Son.

Unknown actor John-Paul Macleod was chosen from hundreds of hopefuls for the title role.

Duffy's first feature, The Boy From Mercury, won several awards, including three of the main prizes at the Giffoni children's film festival in Italy. His next film is The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, starring Elijah Wood and Janeane Garofalo. The Testimony Of Taliesin Jones had its first screening in the Cannes market in May.

Details

Year: 2000
Type of film: Features
Director: Martin Duffy
Music: Mark Thomas.
Dir: Martin Duffy. 2000. 35mm. 102mins. Exec prod: Michael Ryan. Prods: Ben Goddard, Louise Goddard, Helena Mackenzie, Kevin Marcy. Scr: Maureen Tilyou, based on the novel by Rhidian Brook. DoP: Tony Imi. Prod des: Hayden Pearce. Ed: Jonathan Rudd. Main cast: Jonathan Pryce, Ian Bannen, Griff Rhys Jones, Geraldine James, John Paul McLeod, Matthew Rhys, Robert Pugh. Budget: $5m. Funding: Private sources.

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

SNAKE RIVER 22917 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 300 Malibu, CA 90265, US Tel: (1) 310 456 0219 Fax: (1) 310 456 1371 CF1 CYF Uppercliff House Uppercliff Close Penarth, Wales CF64 1BE Tel: (44) 2920 400820 Fax: (44) 2920 711815

Sales Company

IAC Film & Television (44) 20 7592 1620

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

To eleven year old Taliesin Jones, God is as palpable as the apple he buys on his way to school, as real as the rain which trickles down his neck, as near as the warts on his fingertips. In Cqmglum where he lives on a farm in rural Wales, God is all around, even at school where Hoop The Mental hits him on the nose, and earthy Julie Dyer blows confusing smoke rings at him. Others don't see the world the way he does. When his mother leaves home with her hairdresser to put more colour in her life, Taliesin is left behind with his distracted father, sullenly adolescent brother and his own creeping uncertainty to try and make sense of this sudden conspiracy of events. It is only with elderly Billy Evans, piano teacher and part time healer that Taliesin finds a source of miracles, miracles which transform his life . . . The Testimony of Taliesin Jones is a beautifully measured story exploring the troubled borderland between childhood and adolescence. Poetic, precisely observed and filled with humour, it examines the resources of imagination and faith to which children can turn when faced with the confusion and imperfection of the adult world they are about to enter.

Children’s Drama

Tramp

Director: Philip James McGoldrick

Year: 2025

An emotionally charged sports drama following Grazyna "The Tramp" Jarzynowska, a British-Polish MMA fighter whose meteoric rise is abruptly halted by an unexpected pregnancy.

Sport Drama Action

No Women No Children

Director: Akporé Uzoh