Arwel Richards
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arwel Wyn Richards (born 25 January 1982 in Carmarthen) is a Welsh public relations and festival entrepreneur. He is Festival Director of the Swansea Film Festival the Patron of which is Catherine Zeta Jones[1] Welsh actor Michael Sheen is the Vice President. He has pioneered the Welsh polo [2] scene and will be staging the largest polo match in West Wales in 2009. The inaugural Llandeilo Jazz Festival will be launched in the summer of 2009.
Arwel Richards grew up in rural West Wales, in a village near Llanelli. A farmer’s son, his interest include horse racing, hunting, polo and fast cars. It was his father’s keen interest in National Hunt Racing that inspired a recommendation to the eight year old Richards to put his ten pound pocket money savings on the Welsh horse Norton’s Coin in the 1990 Cheltenham Gold Cup. The horse came in at odds of 100/1 establishing the young Richards’ passion for the turf.
Tragedy struck on April 2nd 1999 when his father died suddenly of a heart attack. A well known farmer in West Wales, his funeral at the tiny chapel of Rehoboth in Five Roads, Carmarthenshire, where generations of the family are buried, was attended by over one thousand mourners. The resulting wake was spread over three local public houses.
Richards has combined his passion for films and polo by collaborating on a polo film, filming will begin in Texas, USA in the autumn of 2009.
