Short Summary

My name is Helia Phoenix and I'm a Cardiff resident. Two years ago, some friends and I got annoyed with all the negative stuff we kept reading about Cardiff in the media.

So we created a website called We Are Cardiff, designed to give a more authentic account of the lives of ordinary people who live in our ordinary little city. The website has been pretty successful - but we think we can do more.

Now we want to make We Are Cardiff - the movie! This documentary film is now approaching its second shooting phase (between now and Christmas), and it's taken shape into a lovely paen to the things that make Cardiff a great place to live. We've concentrating on the things you might not see if you're only visiting for a weekend - all the alternative culture that we love so much, covering things like Swn Festival, the Tiger Bay Brawlers roller derby team, the Riverside Market community garden, and so on. You can follow the progress of the filming on the blog here.

What We Need & What You Get

We're seeking $10,000 to cover production and post-production costs, health and safety licenses, filming permits. We’re trying our very hardest to run the project on a shoestring. Any amount that you can donate will really help us make this project happen.

We’ve also teamed up with local charity Llamau for the project. Llamau is a homeless charity, delivering services to socially excluded homeless and potentially homeless young people and vulnerable women in South Wales. The charity does great work for homeless young people in Cardiff and we want to support them as much as possible. Any profit we make from the film will be donated to Llamau to help them carry on the amazing work they do. So you can rest assured that your money is going to a good cause. (If you want to donate directly to them – and you totally should – use this link to donate to Llamau)

 

The Impact

We started up the We Are Cardiff website to provide an alternative view of the city. And the film we’re now making is a logical progression of that. We want to show you what it’s like to spend a year in the city if you aren’t on a stag do, nor interested in ‘booze-cruising’ up the main drag of St Mary Street… there are many brilliant things happening here. We want you to spend a year with us enjoying them!

We really love our city and think we have a great chance to make a film that showcases how wonderful, creative and supportive a place to live it can be.

 What happens if this film doesn’t get made? Well, it’s bad news for the city and for the people who live here. Just expect to see more stereotypes and more one-sided national news stories that remain self-perpetuating and unchallenged. Boo!

 

 

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't afford to spare any cash (we understand, times are hard) - please support us by posting links to our IndieGoGo campaign on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else online (and please tell people in the real world too!). Also if you can donate any time or skills to the project (anything technical OR perhaps you could suggest potential people for us to feature) we really need that too!

You could also join our group on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

We really appreciate any help we can get. We're actually very grateful you were interested enough to even read this far down the page and haven't switched tabs to go look at some pictures of Olympic double gold medalist Mo Farah running away from things...