ONE of the most harrowing stories in Welsh maritime history has been made into a film released this summer.

The Lighthouse documents the 1801 Smalls lighthouse tragedy in which two men, Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffith, were stranded 25 miles off the Pembrokeshire coast on a remote rock for months following a freak storm.

The historic thriller is directed and co-written by Chris Crow (Panic Button, The Darkest Day) and stars Michael Jibson (The Bank Job, Les Misérables) and Mark Lewis Jones (Master And Commander, Child 44, Game Of Thrones).

Shot in south Wales on a budget of £300,000, a giant green screen was used to capture the dramatic moments at sea.

"It's a psychological thriller about being stuck somewhere in dreadful circumstances,” producer David Lloyd told BBC news.

“Our hope was always that at the end of the film you came out the cinema feeling like you'd been stuck on a lighthouse in a raging storm for a couple of months."

At the mercy of the Irish Sea, Howell and Griffith’s were left to keep the light. But with tensions high and rations dwindling, the two-man team were pushed to the limit.

When Howell was eventually rescued from the ordeal, the physical and mental effect it had on him meant that he was unrecognisable to his friends.

Following the incident, the policy for crewing lighthouses changed so that they were staffed by at least three people.

The Lighthouse was released earlier this month and is currently touring cinemas around Wales.