As you may have noticed there’s a bundle of 2012 highlights up on our homepage now – tickets for these events will be available from Monday 6th Feb. This is just the beginning, but gives you some idea of the range of things on offer at Flatpack this year. Some other joys in store…

BIKERMANIA – A programme devoted to British biking culture, including George Formby at the TT Races, Black Country Hells Angels and an evening of two-wheeled entertainment from BFI Flipside.

FILM BUG – An invasion of Birmingham’s city centre featuring countless free screenings, walking tours and live scores around Colmore Row.

MISSPENT YOUTH – Formative movies selected by a range of people including sculptor Cornelia Parker, comedian Adil Ray and Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine.

OUTER SIGHT – A series of far out psynema specials including ‘weird world’ speakeasy, celluloid sleepover and a trip into the uncanny world of Robert Morgan.

BRING YOUR OWN BEAMER – One room + many artists, each with their own projector = visual overload. More info coming soon.

Plus your basic screenings of amazing films from all over the world including new work from Aki Kaurismaki, Ben Rivers, Jafar Panahi, Park Chan-Wook and Werner Herzog, the return of Puppetology, music docs galore and archive gold. The full programme will be up here on 20 Feb, with plenty more updates on here and twitter in the meantime. Exciting!

Colour Box returns on Saturday for the second of our family matinee screenings with a new English language version of popular Norwegian classic Pinchliffe Grand Prix.

Released in 1975 and based on characters by writer Kjell Aukrust, this beautifully realised stop motion animation adaptation by Ivo Caprino features inventor Theodore Rimspoke and his two friends Sonny (a magpie) and Lambert (a hedgehog). The trio live at the top of a hill where they make ingenious and outlandish devices, until one day they find out that an international motor race will be happening in their village.

To find out more check out the 7inch website, and you can book tickets via mac.

Coming up in the Colour Box programme we also have a fun afternoon of workshop sessions with Steven Roberts, the BAFTA-winning creator of CBeebies animation series Dipdap. It’s sure to be a highlight of the Flatpack Festival so come along on Saturday 17 March to see how how it’s done and for a chance to get creative too.

Flatpack tends to involve a jumble of artforms, so this year’s collaboration with storytelling wizards YARN makes total sense. With your help we’re aiming to recreate the entire plot of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, through the medium of song, performance, film, illustration and literature (and probably a few others). Each participant will be allocated a slice of the Charles Foster Kane saga (around 6.5% of it), and will then have to work out an interesting way of telling it. This is how it works…

- The doors are now open to your expressions of interest – just fill in the short form on Yarn’s site and let us know why you’d like to be involved;
- On 1 March submissions will close, and we’ll select fifteen teams (three for each artform) to tell the story;
- Shortly before the festival each team will receive their story-chunk, with a week or so to prepare for…
- The grand finale. On 18 March – the last day of the festival – the entire film will be recreated at the Custard Factory from start to finish in a dazzling, multi-media, cast-of-thousands performance known as Five Stories High.

That’s about the size of it. If you’re interested in taking part, keep these dates in mind and think about what sort of team you’d want to put together – solo submissions are also very welcome. There will be very little in the way of budget for participants, but technical and emotional support in abundance and some free Flatpack tickets.

As usual, we’ll be infiltrating a swathe of weird and wonderful venues across Birmingham in March. We’ve conjured up a magical mix of film screenings and live events, and thrown in a sprinkling of experimental art and music for good measure. We’ll need our volunteers to help us with things like setting up venues, stewarding, box office and bars.

The festival runs from the 14^th to 18^th March, and volunteers need to be available for the whole period.

If you’d like to be part of the Flatpack experience please download an application form from the website (links below) and email the completed form to volunteers@7inch.org.uk.

The closing date for applications is Friday 10^th February.

http://www.7inch.org.uk/files/flatpack_volunteer_form.doc

http://www.7inch.org.uk/files/flatpack_volunteer_form.pdf

Each year Flatpack pays homage to a patron saint, someone from Birmingham who has played a role in film history. In some ways our honoree this year was a bit-part player – a man whose CV includes roles like ‘Front End of Horse’ and ‘Man Hit by Tomato’ – but Charlie Hall (1899-1959) was also an integral part of the team behind cinema’s best-loved double-act. Apart from the boys themselves, he appeared in more Laurel and Hardy films than anyone else, as well as writing gags, building sets and working with the likes of Abbot and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He grew up in Ward End, Birmingham (down the road from the birthplace of Iris Barry, last year’s patron saint) and this year we’ll be doffing a cap to him.

In the meantime, here’s a festive selection of L&H. Charlie is the chap who kicks out the dog (Laughing Gravy) 30 seconds in…

Flatpack 6 is approaching fast, and the team just keeps on growing. We’re now looking for two interns to join us between January and early April – one Festival Assistant and one Marketing Assistant. If you think you’d benefit from the experience have a look at the information below, and then get in touch with your CV and a brief idea of why you’d like to be involved in this year’s festival. Please state clearly in the email which role interests you.

Festival Assistant internship [PDF, 156 KB]

Marketing Assistant internship [PDF, 148 KB]

Update – the deadline has been extended to 13th January.

There may be another couple of months until Flatpack proper, but there are various ways of filling the gaps inbetween – including a series of special Colour Box screenings at mac. On the first Saturday of every month we’ll be putting on a series of amazing international films for all ages, kicking off on Saturday 7th January with Studio Ghibli’s marvellous 1988 fable My Neighbour Totoro. More details can be found over at the 7inch website, and you can book tickets via mac.

Our submission deadline may be just 3 days away, but if you’re 18-30 and an IdeasTap member you have a little more time to submit a short for the festival. Flatpack is teaming up with IdeasTap for a screening of the most exciting work produced by IdeasTap members from around the UK. The deadline for these submissions is Monday 16th January. Full details on how to submit can be found here. For those over 30, send us an email and attach the completed word doc below to info@7inch.org.uk before 3:30pm on Friday 16th December.

Flatpack 6 submissions form [.DOC, 80 Kb]

Two deadlines to let you know of. Firstly, the deadline for Flatpack submissions is rapidly approaching. Just over a week left. 3:30pm on Friday 16th December 2011 is the precise deadline. There are a couple of ways in which to submit your film, you can send us a dvd or a link with a print out of the pdf or word doc below. If you prefer to submit digitally however, please attach the completed form and email it to info@7inch.org.uk with 2012 SUBMISSION in the subject line.

Flatpack 6 submissions form [.PDF, 80 Kb]

Flatpack 6 submissions form [.DOC, 80 Kb]

Secondly, Sheffield Doc Fest have extended their deadline for applications for Devise 2 Deliver; a 5-stage programme designed to help you maximise returns from the potential offered by developments in digital technology. The new deadline is Monday 19th December 2011. For information on Devise 2 Deliver and how to apply, follow this link.

It’s that time again! The sixth Flatpack Festival is a growing dot on the horizon (13-18 March 2012 in Birmingham – save the dates), and we seek short films for the programme. If you’ve made something which might fit the bill, please download and print the PDF below then fill it out and send it to us with a DVD or viewing link. Films need to be 20 minutes or less, and the deadline is Friday 16 December:

Flatpack 6 submissions form [.PDF, 80 Kb]

Flatpack 6 submissions form [.DOC, 80 Kb]

**We’ve just added a word version to make life easier for you. If you prefer to submit digitally please send the form to info@7inch.org.uk with 2012 SUBMISSION in the subject line.**