Documentary

Britain’s first reggae band, Cimarons, was formed by teenage Jamaican immigrants in a London bus shelter in 1967. Reggae exploded in the 1970s, with Cimarons at its heart. Thousands of miles from Jamaica, they brought excitement, experimentation and sheer anticipation booming from speaker boxes, putting the new generation of Black British youth in touch with their roots.

Cimarons have been hugely under-recognised when it comes to their music, impact and legacy. They are the forgotten men of reggae – when Marley first toured the UK in 1972, all the promotional material advertised “Bob Marley & The Wailers”, but in reality it was Bob Marley & The Cimarons” who the adoring fans saw on stage.

They went on to make interesting roots reggae to emerge from the UK in the 1970s. Having lost drummer Maurice Ellis to cancer, the band persists, despite decades of exploitation. The Harder Than The Rock documentary tells the story of their amazing history and follows the band’s final chapter as they dream of performing in front of live audiences again, one last time…

Why Your Support Is Needed

The Harder Than The Rock film is already made and will be getting its World Premiere this year. Four years of shooting got the filmmakers to the point where they went into the cutting room at the start of 2024 and there is now a full, feature-length documentary that covers more than 50 years of the Cimaron’s history. They’ve discovered Super 8 home movie footage shot by the band, been through Covid, music festivals, health problems and tragic loss, but they truly believe they have a great film ready to share with the world. This is a timely, important work that deserves as wide an audience as possible.

However…

They need to clear footage of the band on television during the 1970s, along with the photography and the various broadcast archives that are so integral to telling their story in the proper context – and there is a cost attached to doing this.

As well as paying for the licensing required to release the film, they would also like to employ the services of some specialists – an archive producer and music supervisor to oversee this process.

Your donations will keep Harder Than A Rock independent and is the fastest way to get it to a screen near you. Go to the project’s Kickstarter page and support the project for no reward, just because it speaks to you.