John Hefin

One of the great talents of British television, John Hefin's work is largely overlooked by critics and historians outside his native Wales, where he served a long and highly successful stint as head of drama for the BBC. In 1983 he oversaw the first drama series to be shot entriely in Welsh, a significant milestone in the campaign to preserve the language (which came very close to extinction in the 1970s, but is now spoken by nearly a quarter of the population.) In the early 90s he was instrumental in founding the Welsh Film Commission, which he also managed for a time, after which he partially retired in order to help create a course in film and television at the University of Wales, in his home town of Aberystwyth. He has recently begun a long-awaited return to film and television directing.