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A documentary about Welsh rock legends Manic Street Preachers that took 10 years to make will receive its premiere in Cardiff tonight.

No Manifesto: A Film About Manic Street Preachers will receive its first screening at Chapter Arts Centre on January 30.

The date marks the culmination of a dream by Manics’ fan Elizabeth Marcus who independently funded and shot the film while travelling the globe collecting testimonies from Manics’ fans, which she then edited around conversations recorded with the band on tour and at home.

Invited to enter the band’s inner sanctum with a handheld camera in 2005, she was offered unprecedented access to James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore and captured the band at a crossroads in their career after the critically cool reception to their 2004 album Lifeblood.

The documentary is told using interviews with nearly 100 fellow fans across the world, archive footage, intimate conversations at home with the band during the making of their 2007 album Send Away The Tigers, and live performances from three tours filmed especially for this project.

Related: Listen to a previously unreleased Manic Street Preachers track in our fantastic new music giveaway

“I didn’t want to make a typical rock doc – a chronological story,” said Elizabeth, who directed and co-produced No Manifesto with partner Kurt Engfehr, a film producer responsible for such groundbreaking documentaries as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine.

“The Manics’ aesthetic is to be a collage – to put together things that interest them and that may not fit together in an obvious way at first glance but have an underlying connection,” she added. “I wanted to make a film like that – one that looks and feels more like a scrapbook than a narrative.

“And I wanted to make the fans a big part of it because it was largely the fan community that had inspired my enthusiasm for the band.”

No Manifesto captures the Blackwood band, who will play a sold out show at Cardiff Castle in June, approaching their 40s and coming to terms with what it means to be a middle-aged rock band – a difficult realignment since the dramatic disappearance of their friend and fourth band member Richey Edwards in February 1995.

“Having to talk about Richey, although they really wanted to do it, was hard for them,” saidd Elizabeth. “They didn’t want to dwell on the fact of his absence. It was almost like he went out to buy a packet of cigarettes and he’ll be back any minute.”

She added: “That’s what drives the band – their working class bond, their friendship. A lot of fans mention that in the interviews. The love for each other that’s seen them through all the ups and the downs.”

Watch the trailer for the film (**Warning: features strong language**):

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The downs included the critical negativity towards Lifeblood when they were forced to reassess their status long before their critical reinvention that has seen their reawakening in recent years thanks to their most recent albums, Rewind The Film and Futurology.

“In the early 2000s their period of mass audiences had peaked,” said Elizabeth. “While we were making the film they were exploring what it meant not to be arena fillers any more but to still have a commercial audience – people who care about them and buy their records and always will.”

The band’s diverse and articulate fanbase is one of the centrepieces of the film – uncovering the thoughts and feelings of one of the most passionate collections of followers in rock ’n’ roll.

“A typical Manics’ fan is less defined by what you can see on the outside; inside they all feel they don’t quite belong – in a positive, not a negative way,” said the filmmaker.

Related: Try our Manic Street Preachers lyrics quiz

“There are some people who do the things that are expected of them and others with a restlessness and desire for something more exciting. That doesn’t have to mean wild and crazy and dramatic. It can just mean being proud of who you are.

“Like the fan in the title sequence of the film says, ‘The Manic Street Preachers definitely taught me it’s okay to take pride in one’s intelligence, to believe in things, to believe in oneself, and to be sexy and fabulous while doing it’.”

No Manifesto: A Film About Manic Street Preachers will be premiered at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, on Friday, January 30. There will also be a Q&A with Elizabeth Marcus and Kurt Engfehr hosted by WalesOnline journalist David Owens, as well as the screening of an exclusive compilation of concert footage. The film will also be shown at Chapter Arts Centre on Saturday, January 31, at 3.30pm. Tickets from the box office on 029 2030 4400 or via www.chapter.org . The film will be released simultaneously on DVD, Blu-ray and video on demand on February 16.

Find out more at: www.nomanifestofilm.com