_Big Stories, Small Towns

Big Stories, Small Towns is an ongoing, online and participatory documentary series that explores community life in small towns. The project’s producer is Big Stories Co. and principal funder is Screen Australia.Filmmakers-in-residence live in a small town for several months, working with locals to capture the stories of the community. Filmmakers run workshops so local residents can contribute their own content for the Big Stories website. Photo essays, oral histories, and community-created footage populate the Big Stories website. The goal of the collaboration is to create “local stories with global impact.”

The project continues to evolve with additional towns coming alone. In 2013 the small community of Strathewen, Victoria—which was devastated by a 2009 fire storm— worked with Big Stories Co. to create community stories as a companion piece to Celeste Geer’s documentary Then The Wind Changed (2012). In late 2014 Big Stories will feature further towns from across Australia and the Asia Pacific region as part of Big Stories: Asia Pacific.