Eight months into the miners' strike, South Wales remains solid while other coalfields slowly cave in to pressure and despair. But with winter approaching, things worsen in Rhymney Valley: violence erupts and a taxi driver is killed. In order to raise morale and money, Abe Roberts, the local Labor Party Chairman, decides to organize a beauty competition, but in the course of his plans he comes up against a community of women who have been radicalized by the strike. Ms. Rhymney Valley 1985 is the story of those coalmining women who must stop in the middle of a momentous political upheaval, to prove to their men that beauty is more than skin deep. The people of Rhymney Valley portray themselves in this remarkable film by Karl Francis, whose Boy Soldier had its U.S. premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival '87 (as did Ms. Rhymney Valley). Viewing the film at the Cork Film Festival in 1986, Greek director Costa Gavras (Z) called it "one of the great British political films... (It) speaks with an authentic voice rarely experienced in the cinema. A rare combination of poetry, politics, and pleasure.... What great women."