We Are Cardiff the film - Phase 2!

Our Story

So. We Are Cardiff is a website that invites residents of Cardiff to share their stories about living in the city. We’re kind of a hyperlocal site, but rather than choosing what news to share, we let the residents speak.

The website was created as a response to the endless barrage of negative news we saw on TV and in national newspapers about Cardiff – programme after programme and story after story about how Cardiff is the drunk capital of the UK, full of nothing but hen and stag parties, and with little else to offer apart from a stadium and more pubs per square mile along the stretch of St Mary Street.

For the people who live in Cardiff, while this version of the city might be true (between the hours of 10-2am on Friday and Saturday nights), for the other 160 hours of a typical week, Cardiff is quite a different place. It boasts lots of amazing independent businesses, some fantastic coastline, hugely redeveloped areas and a bunch of great artistic and cultural communities. Plus we have more parks-per-person than any other major UK city.

We’re super proud of our city, which is why we started the website. We don’t censor what people write on there – residents are encouraged to write their ‘true’ stories of living in the city, be they positive or negative. But the point is there are multiple points of views and many different sides to a city like Cardiff besides the tiny portion that might catch the news.

We ran an Indiegogo campaign earlier this year to raise some money to shoot a trailer and a mini-version of our film. We got a collective of local film-makers on board to help us shoot the trailer, and we’re currently shooting the mini-We Are Cardiff film. But we need to film throughout the whole of 2012 to get the full project together and done.

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 have some wonderful local community groups involved with the project, including:

-       Swn Festival

-       Riverside Community Allotment Project (part of RCMA)

-       The National Theatre of Wales

-       The Tiger Bay Brawlers roller derby team

-       The Welsh Burlesque festival

(plus more top secret people we can’t reveal yet!)

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!

What We Need & What You Get

As we’ve moved into the phase of fund-raising for the main bulk of the filming, we need cash for equipment hire, plus to pay for folks’ time and any other incidental costs that pop up in the meantime. 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!

And don’t forget, it’s not like we’re expecting something for nothing. When you invest in our project through Indiegogo, you get to pick one of our amazing perk packages! Always wanted a We Are Cardiff t-shirt, but never known where to get one from? Or ever wanted to be the executive producer of a film? Now you can! (NB if you invested last time the perks have changed this time to include a poster, don't worry - you'll still get one!)

We’re looking at raising some corporate funding too in addition to crowdfunding, (so if any of you are local business owners who want to invest in this project, please email wearecardiff@gmail.com to discuss corporate sponsorship opportunities).

Incidentally, we’ve 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)

Other Ways You Can Help

There are SO many other ways you can help with this campaign!

-       Send round the link to this page and encourage other people to donate to it! There are a couple of share tools on this page, so you can share the link on Facebook, Twitter, by email, or eve carrier pigeon! (ok not really the last one)

-       Invite people you know from Cardiff to participate in the We Are Cardiff website (we’re still looking for people to feature on it!)

-       Offer yourself as a spare pair of hands for our filming days (we will undoubtedly need help at some point! We can’t offer payment but we will buy your lunch and keep you lubricated throughout the day!)

-       Are you a musician or a band? We’re looking for music we can use license-free on our soundtrack. Great exposure for you, and a great way to support this local community project

-       Follow the progress of the film on our film-making blog, where you can sign up for email updates