Chocolate Films Project

1000 Londoners is a unique digital portrait of our city.

It offers an insight into the lives of 1000 people who consider themselves to be Londoners, taking in all ages, religions, race, income, interests and opinions.

Each week, a profile of a Londoner is posted on the home page. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life.

During that week, the profile will be publicised using social and traditional media.

Each Thursday at midday, the home page changes to show the profile of a brand new Londoner. All the profiles are archived into a searchable online gallery of Londoners, so have fun with your searches!

The profiles are created in three ways:

Professional productions by filmmakers from Chocolate Films
Workshops with youth and community groups
Themed open submissions and competitions

The aim of the project is to improve understanding and community cohesion by enabling Londoners to learn more about the people who share their city. We want Londoners to make films about each other and, by so doing, investigate the sheer variety of people around them.

This is a multiple-year project that involves a wide range of partners and supporters. Funders and overall project partners include: City Bridge Trust, the Newcomen Collett Foundation, The London Transport Museum, the London Borough of Southwark, the London Borough of Wandsworth and The British Library.

Now go and have fun dipping into someone else’s world!

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Goals & Aims

1000 Londoners aims to paint a colourful, detailed and all-encompasssing portrait of a city in a way that has never been done before. Community cohesion and understanding are at the heart of the project. We hope that the films will reveal unknown facets of the city to viewers and encourage them to go out and experience other parts of the city. Through our community learning and engagement, we hope that Londoners will meet people from other parts of the city and discover more about the people around them.

The 10 Golden Rules

1You are a Londoner if you think you are. If someone arrived here a week ago and believes that he/she is a Londoner, that's fine. If someone has lived here all their life and still doesn't identify themselves as a Londoner, then they're not for us.

2The film starts with the contributor's first name only. There is a big difference between "Ken Livingstone, Former Mayor of London" and "Ken"

3The film is a documentary portrait. It should give us an understanding of who the person is and what drives them. It shouldn't feel like a promotional film for an organisation or an event. Nor is it a fund-raising film or a campaign film. And it's not time-specific video journalism.

4The film must be a new story. Our goal is to uncover new stories, thoughts and opinions from within a capital. If the person has no media presence, this is easier. If the person has a media presence then we aim to unveil something new about them.

5Our goal is to be as objective as possible, not to judge - it's too easy for a filmmaker to make a 3 minute film saying that bankers are too rich or that people are taking too much money from benefits (depending on what side of the political fence you seem to be on!). With 1000 Londoners, we aim to show a portrait of that person's life.

6The film is about a Londoner and it is set in London, but not necessarily about London. We don't want 1000 films about people's favourite restaurants or memories of long tube journeys. We want films about the people. The best films about cities capture something of the spirit of the city, they don't take us on a Duck Tour.

7Everybody is interesting - if the film isn't interesting it's our fault, not theirs.

8The Londoner must be alive at the time of filming. This isn't a project about historical Londoners - it's a contemporary portrait of the people living in the city.

9There are no rules about what is or is not permissible - London isn't Disneyland. If it serves the story it goes in but the film will feature a caution at the beginning.

10There is no house style - the story drives everything. If a film is one shot or 1000 that's fine. If it's a photomontage, animation, dramatisation etc that's all fine too, as long as the style is driven by the story and the nature of the contributor.

Produced By Chocolate Films

1000 Londoners is produced by South London based video production company Chocolate Films

Chocolate Films produces films for a wide range of commercial and charity clients. Our clients include Tate, The Science Museum, The Institute of Directors and The National Autistic Society.

Chocolate Films produces long-form documentaries for cinema, broadcast and online.

Chocolate Films is a social enterprise and all profits from the commercial side of the company support our community and educational projects. Each year we work with over 2500 children and young people across London, to encourage them to create their own films.