Swansea Love Story (repost with footnote)

Many years ago the film Twin Town caused some local controversy due to the image it portrayed of the city. Many thought it didn't promote any good aspects of the city, but highlighted drug use and car crime from the city. Others meanwhile, thought it was a humorous snapshot of aspects of Swansea life that the majority of residents were not aware of.
My view was that I took it all very tongue in cheek, but the film has now developed into something of a cult status with Rhys Ifans going on to become a British film star in his own right. However, the comforting note from all the drug use, crime, corruption and sex-trade featured in Twin Town was that it was all fiction.

But now there is a new film that was released a few months ago about Swansea, and none of this film is fiction. "Swansea Love Story" is a documentary telling the story of drug use in Swansea, following the lives of a few drug addicts in the city. It tells their harrowing story over 6 episodes. It was filmed over a period of 6 months in 2009 and was released on the broadband tv channel, VBS.TV.
The film starts of with a shocking statistic, that in the last 4 years heroin use in Swansea increased by 180%. Perhaps I have been a very sheltered resident in Swansea and even though I was aware that drug misuse was apparent in the city, I was not aware of the scale of the problem.
As depressing as the film is, it is a brutal wake up to the realities of the drug problem that is going on now in our city. This is happening all across the city - in the back streets of the busy city centre, to the tower blocks of Dyfatty and suburban areas such as Penlan. Many people may be shocked at what they see and criticise the makers for putting together such a film featuring the city. I on the other hand applaud them. This is a factual story about an aspect of city life that many may not even realise goes on in areas close to where we live, work or socialise.
Perhaps if the more of us that watch this brief glimpse of "the other side" of city life, then the more of us can try to understand the difficulties our fellow residents may face and be all too aware of the dangers that may face our friends and children.

The film can be viewed on the VBS.TV website here over 6 episodes.

Links
Swansea Drugs Project
Welsh Drug and Alcohol Helpline

Footnote
Months after this video has been released, The Evening Post finally picks up on it. It has raised one of the most active debates on the comments section of the article. Apparently local councillors are now interested too and the police have decided to crackdown on the areas concerned in the film around Rhondda Street and Mansel Street.
So expect the problems to be moved elsewhere, very shortly.