When we booked Paul Kelly’s marvellous documentary Lawrence of Belgravia to screen at mac during the festival, we had no idea how appropriate the choice of venue would be. The film’s subject is Lawrence, the man behind Felt, Denim and Go Kart Mozart and one of Birmingham’s unsung musical heroes. As the film’s title suggests he is no longer resident of this parish, but there’s no doubt the place helped to shape his sensibility.
It turns out that as a kid Lawrence lived over the road from the Midlands Arts Centre (as it was then known), and attended art classes there. Later as a film-obsessed teenager he returned to watch arthouse matinees, and later still to pose for publicity shots like the one above from the recent Felt book (Lawrence is on the left, with longtime drummer Gary Ainge on the right). With all this in mind, it’s a real thrill to have both Lawrence and Paul up for the screening on Friday 16th March. It should be quite an occasion, and if you fancy it we’d recommend booking ahead.
Film Bug: 14-16 March
- Posted on 28th February 2012
With the programme now up online and brochures hitting the streets, it’s time to start working out how best to spend your days during the festival. If you’ve already had a browse, you’ve probably come across Film Bug, our mini festival taking place in the Colmore Business District. With screenings and events popping up all over the district throughout the day on Thursday 15th (and some on Friday too), it’s sure to be a cracker. You’ll find features, such as The Lavender Hill Mob, Blank City, and Quadrophenia, various shorts including programmes from KINO 10, and IdeasTap, and plenty more including archive screenings, artists’ film, and live performances. If you’ve studied hard enough, you’ll know that pretty much all of the Film Bug screenings are free too.
Many thanks to Lloyd Bowen too, for our lovely Film Bug ident.
Programme online
- Posted on 23rd February 2012
This is where the fun begins… The Flatpack 6 programme is now online. Still a few details and bugs to iron out, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what’s in store for next month. A palletload of brochures, beautifully designed by An Endless Supply, will be delivered tomorrow and then making their way out into the world. We’ll be back here soon to start breaking down the highlights in a bit more detail.
PS: If you can’t wait for the paper version, the brochure is online now.
Bring Your Own Beamer
- Posted on 8th February 2012
Another open-participation Flatpack event hit the wires this week…
We are pleased to announce the Birmingham edition Bring Your Own Beamer (BYOB), taking place on Friday 16th March at VIVID as part of Flatpack Festival.
BYOB is a series of one-night exhibitions where artists are invited to bring their own “beamers” and explore the medium of projection by creating a collaborative happening of moving light, sound and performance. We are looking for submissions of original video artworks to be looped throughout the night.
Deadline for submissions is 24th Feb. If you’re interested head over to the BYOB Birmingham tumblr to sign up, or follow them on twitter. Bigup to Antonio Roberts and Pete Ashton for getting this off the ground – it should be quite a spectacle!
…And while we’re on the subject of submissions, also keep in mind the Five Stories High event on the last day of the festival. We’re still looking for storytellers – deadline 1 March.
Students, we need you!
- Posted on 7th February 2012
Flatpack are currently recruiting Student Ambassadors to represent the festival at universities across the Midlands and beyond.
Ambassadors will help publicise Flatpack on their campus by flyering on location, promoting the festival to film socs and other relevant networks, and by informally getting the festival known on campus by word of mouth.
No experience is necessary and it’s a great opportunity to get involved with marketing at a grassroots level. Ambassadors will also receive a festival pass for their efforts.
To register your interest just email holly@7inch.org.uk
Highlights!
- Posted on 2nd February 2012
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 22 Feb, with plenty more updates on here and twitter in the meantime. Exciting!
Pinchcliffe Grand Prix
- Posted on 31st January 2012
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 6 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.
**Update** We’ve just extended the deadline to 6 March. Some great entries have been coming in, but we could do with a few more – particularly performers and musicians. If you’d like to know more drop us a line.
© Flatpack Festival 2010