This Lottery Funded project & film was about raising awareness of the complex issues surrounding homelessness. It aimed to highlight the facts and the misconceptions about homelessness in the hope that attitudes change.

Cracking Good Food worked primarily with Reach out to the Community, a charity supporting the homeless based in Chorlton to recruit community members to be trained up as Community Reporters at MACC. Those who volunteered generally worked with many of the organisations existing in Manchester or who had first-hand experience of homelessness themselves. The 2 day training enabled them to learn how to film those who have been, who are currently or on the brink of becoming homeless, sensitively, as well as equipping them with the technical skills. The short & very varied interviews were then given to artist filmmaker Clara Casian who edited it with footage shot outside Reach out to the Community before Christmas, where Cracking Good Food ran 5 cooking sessions to raise awareness of the issues, by having those iimportant conversations with the public. Additional footage was shot elsewhere.

The 20 minute film is a compelling portrait of homelessness in Manchester. It has been screened twice, very successfully at the Edge Theatre in Chorlton, Manchester with Q&As afterwards with organisations from Manchester Homelessness Partnership & ROC. This element we felt was of equal importance as the film raised many issues that the audience wanted to discuss.

We would like this film to be screened elsewhere, publicly, for this reason. If you are able to do so within your organisation/workplace/community please get in touch. Hopefully a member from one of the many organisations in Manchester can offer their time to answer the questions after the screening. There is only a fee if it requires someone to set up projectors/screens etc. Otherwise we just ask that donations be made directly to one of the support organisations.