Cloudless by Rupert Dastur

Set against the natural beauty of north-east Wales, a quietly devastating portrait of a farming family; their experience of love and war, addiction and recovery, and the tug of missed opportunities and lost love.

It is autumn 2004 and in a farmhouse on the hills outside Llandudno, a family endures the agonizing wait for their son to return from Iraq.

His decision to join up has left them reeling, yet there are other pressing concerns to be met at home: the working of the farmland that has been theirs for generations and what to do with their troubled younger son.

Catrin’s childhood sweetheart comes back to their small town, giving the boys’ doting mother a glimpse into the life she could have had. And John, their father, falls once more into his gambling habit, even as the farm sits on the brink of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, no one quite knows why Harri joined the army and the truth behind his decision to leave when he did.

With one son away in a distant war and the farm under financial strain, will either family or farmstead survive?

As each member of the family grasps at their own tenuous lifeline, they drift further from one another – until, on a cold winter evening, there is a fateful knock at the door.