The documentary, made by students from the two universities, centres on the role of sport in Welsh life and features interviews with a range of inspiring athletes.
Cardiff Metropolitan University has partnered with Indiana’s Ball State University to create a feature-length documentary, Transatlantic Storytelling.
The documentary was produced by university students from Ball State’s Emmy award-winning SportsLink programme, in association with students from the Cardiff Met Sport Broadcast Msc programme.
Transatlantic Storytelling focuses on the role of sport in Welsh life, as told through the stories of seven elite Welsh athletes, who all studied at Cardiff Met University.
The athletes in the film include Sam Gordon, the fastest man in Wales; Jenny Nesbitt, the Team GB cross country runner who said running saved her life; Will Godwin, the student sportsman who nearly died, twice; Harrison Walsh, the International rugby player who got badly injured and had to retire, and two years on has returned, this time to Paralympic sport; the International netballer, Lydia Hitchings; the county cricketer, Sam Pearce; and the former Welsh football International player turned university lecturer and football coach, Dr. Christian Edwards.
Establishing shots in the film, of Wales’s mountains, castles, cliffs and coastlines were captured the month before the nation went into lockdown.
The idea to make the film as a collaboration between the two universities began two years ago after the course leaders – Joe Towns, in Wales and Chris Taylor in the USA – began forging links and ways in which they could work together.
In early 2020 students from the two courses began conversations online, via Skype calls, with the Welsh students pitching 12 potential athlete stories for their American counterparts to research.
These were whittled down to seven stories for the documentary, which began filming in March after 15 American staff and students flew over to Cardiff.
The project was edited remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The film premieres on 30 June across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and www.transatlanticstorytelling.com.
Student producers and athletes featured in the film will be engaging on social media using the hashtag #TransatlanticStorytelling throughout the live stream.
A 58-minute version of Transatlantic Storytelling will then be screened on TV in the UK and on local and national TV stations in the USA, including ESPN+.