The view from here

Big Stories, Small Towns is a participatory, multi-platform documentary project gathering small town stories of innovation and resilience and sharing them with a global audience through the www.bigstories.com.au website. The project shines a light on people who care for and create their community. Big Stories, Small Towns is a unique model of community engagement and participation extending from the web through a number of media platforms including community based exhibitions, festival screenings and broadcast. Filmmakers live in a small town and work with local people to bring their stories to the screen. Since 2008, across five towns, filmmakers in residence have produced 84 documentary films and community members have produced 66 digital stories. More than 12 hours of stories are now online. Big Stories has been internationally acclaimed as one of the 'best examples of an online documentary project in the world' (Hussain Currimbhoy, Programmer, Sheffield Doc/Fest) and 'a brilliant digital storytelling site' (Wendy Levy, ex-director, Sundance Institute). The project won Community Champion at SXSW Interactive in 2012 and the SASA Innovation in Digital Media Award 2012. It has been finalist at the Japan Prize, Australian Web Awards and AIMIA Awards. It was showcased at both IDFA's DocLab and DocFestUK in 2009 and again in 2011 and has been featured at more than 40 festivals internationally. Communities involved in Big Stories have embraced the project and acknowledged the positive impact it has had on their towns. We've supported local groups in addressing trauma, changing policy, archiving their history, fundraising, winning awards, having a bit of fun and most importantly sharing their experience and stories with other communities of interest