Kaite O’Reilly is one of the extraordinary voices challenging what it means to tell a Welsh story. Her debut feature film, The Almond And The Seahorse, takes a story rooted in Wales and disability politics, and speaks to the world. Speaking to Bethany Handley, Kaite discusses the importance of representation on the big screen and the diversifying of Welsh film.

The Almond And The Seahorse, directed by Celyn Jones and Tom Stern, follows two couples – Sarah and Joe, Toni and Gwen – where, in each case, one partner is living with amnesia as a result of traumatic brain injury. With empathy and unconditional love, the film examines what it’s like to love someone who may not always remember you.

The film, which premiered at Zurich Film Festival in 2022, boasts a cast including Rebel Wilson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Trine Dyrholm, Meera Syal and Ruth Madeley. Kaite O’Reilly’s screenplay is adapted from her play of the same name, which debuted at Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre in 2008 and was a huge success, with a five-star Guardian review and adaptions all over the world.

“We had a fantastic response from the audience,” says O’Reilly. “It’s a story that really speaks to people, because it’s making visible the silent epidemic.” Leading British neurologist Oliver Sacks has described traumatic brain injury as “a silent epidemic [that’s] not going anywhere”: O’Reilly placed this line directly into both the play and screenplay.

The role of Joe in the play had originally been written for Celyn Jones, who O’Reilly had been working with since he was a teenager. They’d been discussing adapting The Almond… into a screenplay for years: over lunch in 2018, they decided to give it a shot, writing its first draft that same weekend. “It just snowballed,” O’Reilly says; “[production company] Mad As Birds saw the potential and loved it.” Due to Kaite and Celyn’s “absolute belief and trust in each other”, they developed the screenplay remotely, with intensive 24-hour meetups where they worked through the night. 

As an integral member of disability arts in Wales and beyond – living with a degenerative spinal condition and visual impairment – O’Reilly’s writing is grounded in disability politics. She rips apart the dichotomy that disabled characters must either be inspirational or objects of pity, and through The Almond… challenges current dehumanising and frightening depictions of traumatic brain injury survivors in film. “They’re not victims – they’re survivors, and they’re dealing with shifted reality; living [their] lives with autonomy and complexity, and challenges and triumphs, just like anyone else.”

O’Reilly, like many people, has friends and family – including her father – with experience of traumatic brain injury; neuropsychologist Dr Falmer, played by Meera Syal, is was a character inspired by someone close to the writer. When writing both play and screenplay, she consulted disabled people and traumatic brain injury survivors, to ensure she was doing their stories justice. Welsh charity Headway, who help people and families affected by brain injury, were also involved from an early stage when O’Reilly was researching the play, and worked with Mad As Birds during the movie’s production in an advisory role; during scenes in the field hospital, artwork by people who use Headway’s services can be seen. Imagine a film industry where involving the people whose stories we’re telling is common practice, not ‘best practice’.  

Another example of The Almond…’s positive representation is its five extraordinary female leads: Wilson, Gainsbourg, Dyrholm, Syal and Madeley, or the “embarrassment of riches” as O’Reilly affectionately calls them. As she also points out, they’re all over 35 years old and represent talent from around the world: we rarely see such powerful women together. 

As a wheelchair user myself, I found the character of Jenny, played by the incredible Madeley, particularly refreshing. Often the impairments of disabled characters drive the narrative, yet Jenny is a stroppy professional who just happens to be disabled. The script dismantles the stereotype of the virtuous, appeasing disabled woman with this character – flawed but loving as she is, by all rights this shouldn’t be considered a radical character for the big screen. We need films, says O’Reilly, “where human relationships have all the different shades of what it is to be human.”

How does the writer define the importance of having disabled people represented on the big screen? “It’s how we change things,” O’Reilly says. “We’ve got to normalise a film that is full of women who are mature women and they’re the protagonists of their own lives, whether they be disabled or non-disabled. We have to have more representation of people’s cultural heritage.”

So why do films like The Almond And The Seahorse need to be screened in cinemas? Perhaps because this is a film that challenges the viewer and which, in evoking recognition and a complex array of emotions, demands to be discussed. When the difficult topic matter touches so many of us, watching the film should be a shared experience.

“There’s something incredibly impactful about being with friends or strangers in a space, all our hearts beating together,” says O’Reilly. “Your heart will be wrung out. But you will feel seen. I’ve been wanting to be inclusive; I’ve been wanting to make visible those of us who have been left in the shadow for too long.” Thanks, then, to changemakers like her, we are seeing slow progress in the film industry, which includes more diverse representations and more stories which take place in Wales (or originated here, as with The Almond And The Seahorse.

O’Reilly has lived in west Wales since the early 90s, having moved from England due to discrimination against the Irish at the time, and since then, has become an integral voice in Welsh arts, helping to challenge our definitions of a Welsh story and promote Wales to the world. “I’m really grateful to Wales because it’s given me a home,” she says. “The idea of my voice being part of the multiple international Welsh voices that are emanating out into the world is incredibly exciting.” 

With co-director Celyn Jones from north Wales, research undertaken domestically, and scriptwriting and filming both happening here too, The Almond And The Seahorse’s DNA is Welsh – yet it tells a universal story. O’Reilly suggests that writing the script at her home, at the end of a dirt track in rural west Wales, for a film shown around the world proves that the notion you need to live in London – or even Cardiff – to contribute to the creative industries is a myth. This ability to tell a story from anywhere in Wales to global audiences is diversifying Welsh identity and our arts sector.  

The Almond And The Seahorse marks an exciting time for the Welsh film industry and the wider arts sector as we begin to celebrate the diversities of Welsh identity. Strong, international voices such as Kaite O’Reilly’s are helping to shape a more inclusive, innovative Wales. As she puts it: “We are a small nation, but we talk to the world. And the world is represented in our borders.” 

The Almond And The Seahorse is released in cinemas on Fri 10 May.

Info: almondandseahorse.movie

words BETHANY HANDLEY

This article was commissioned by Film Hub Wales as part of its Made In Wales project, which celebrates films with Welsh connections, thanks to funding from Creative Wales and the National Lottery via the BFI.