Prison documentary wins prize for Scotland

A DOCUMENTARY about life in Scotland’s only women’s prison was among the Scots winners at a festival celebrating the best of ‘Celtic’ film and broadcasting.

Girls Behind Bars, produced by Michelle Friel and Julien Kean, involved spending a year at Cornton Vale Women’s Prison. It took the Factual Series prize.

The 30th Celtic Media Festival, this year held in Caerarfon, Wales, also saw a Scottish documentary about a daughter coping with her mother and her Alzheimer’s Disease among the winners.

Mum and Me took the ‘Factual single’ award. The documentary was filmed over three years.

The festival celebrates the best of Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Breton film and broadcasting.

Winner of the overall prize – the Gold Torc award for excellence – was Dringo i’r Eitha (Extreme Climbing), a Welsh language documentary about a rock climbing ‘prodigy’, Ioan Doyle, and filmed on location in Snowdonia, Greece and California by acclaimed mountain filmmaker, Alun Hughes.