When documentary director Catherine Yeats visited an Anglesey chip shop and heard the terrifying roar of an RAF jet, it set her on a path of discovery as a storyteller. In due course, this became short film Warbirds, as she recounts to Keiron Self.
“I could feel the air in my chest vibrating,” says Catherine Yeats, recalling standing in the chippy in Rhosneigr, a seaside village on Anglesey. It was the noise of the jets flying overhead that did it: Rhosneigr is on the RAF Valleys flight path.
To the uninitiated, the sensation is shocking, but to everyone else in the takeaway, it was just part of their daily lives. One of those people – Jude, a young man working in the chippy – told Yeats, “Sometimes bits of my roof fall down.” Curiosity piqued, she interviewed Jude who shared a story of grief, community and family that formed the core of Warbirds, Yeats’ documentary.
“It is an honour, as a storyteller, to be trusted with something so delicate,” she says now. A pivotal moment in the film comes in the aftermath of Jude’s cousin’s death: even here, the family can’t escape their airborne nemeses. “I knew [Jude] was choosing to tell me because he wanted to talk about his cousin,” Yeats continues, “and because our filmmaking would help him process the event and commemorate it too.”
Amidst the small, tight-knit Rhosneigr community, Yeats would encounter others who raged against the noise pollution of the low-flying RAF jets – but also people who see them as part of the fabric of the town, and enthusiasts who visit to witness the flybys. Within its 21-minute running time, Warbirds expertly and beautifully presents a snapshot of a place struggling to retain its identity, with locals remembering a time when they could afford houses which are now second homes or holiday lets.
The film also introduces us to local painter and poet Brian Entwistle – one of his poems, Warbirds, gives the film its name, yet he harbours an affection for the planes based there – and noise pollution campaigner Mark Rosenthal, who attempts to democratically address the issue with the Ministry Of Defence. “[It’s] an organisation whose actions interact on the global scale, not a village scale,” Rosenthal notes.
“What interests me,” says Yeats, “is the way local experiences can disappear when viewed against larger geopolitical narratives. We all have local lives, and I think we allow them to lose their significance by losing ourselves in global narratives that will likely only exist for us as a second-hand experience.
“Not to say that global events don’t impact us – but for almost all of us, they will never be as close to us as the few roads we walk down every day.” Indeed, something massive is being said in the specifics of the story; Jude’s sharing of a moment of grief speaks to a wider tale about inclusion and community.
Warbirds was screened at the 2025 edition of Anglesey’s SeeMôr Film Festival and has since been shown at Hastings Rocks and Brighton Rocks. Yeats and her small crew, including co-producer Ben Kelvin, are planning more screenings following one in Rhosneigr itself, details of which are linked below. (The documentary is available for booking on FilmHubWales, whose members can arrange for the film to be screened alongside other relevant features.)
A tender, thoughtful film that has plenty to say, Warbirds is a microcosm of society; a quiet, forceful voice amidst an oppressive metallic roar.
Warbirds Homecoming Film Screening / Q&A with Catherine Yeats, Rhosneigr Village Hall, Sat 11 July
Tickets: £3. Info: here
words KEIRON SELF
