Welcome to Udigrudi.
Udigrudi’s history almost ended when we were locked underground in an office, an event that inspired the play Under Quiet Neath. Well, real life happened a little differently. Instead of being locked in with panicky people, we were locked in with hundreds of books.
We used to tell people that Udigrudi books and movies started life as a market stall in Aberystwyth Market Hall back in 1999. It actually began even earlier than that.
It started in the 1980s, when a young boy heard actors sing along to Bye Bye, Miss American Pie, and, after having a turn on stage himself, thought, “Why don’t I try one?”
This led to a stage play that was never finished. Later, he was invited to write scripts for friends in high school. By the mid-1990s, he and a few friends had set up their first production company and were creating short films on a Hi8 camcorder.
In 1997, after moving to Wales, he began using the words Udigrudi and Chanchada to promote the films he wanted to make.
Then, in 1999, a few members of the team began making films and selling greeting cards at the market stall under the name “Udigrudi Books and Movies.”
In 2013, they created a limited company, Ptara Ltd, to produce their first feature film. Another business, Udigrudi Ltd, was created for other kinds of ventures. These companies closed in 2019. But the stories were owned by us and not the corporation, so the Udigrudi name lives on.