Another big weekend with something for everybody (unless you happen to hate animation, music and design in equal measure, in which case you can just do one) with:
Plus+ International Design Expo
Flip Animation Festival
Gigbeth
Plus+ kicked off today at Fazeley Studios, Digbeth. I’m heading over in a bit and am not really sure what to expect other than the much-discussed tart cards. I suppose I’m looking forward to catching a talk or two and just having a mooch about.
Flip is over in Wolverhampton at the Light House and consists of three days of animation goodness – screenings, portfolio dissections, talks and all sorts, with a closing party hosted by Colour.
Gigbeth kicks off with the conference tomorrow and carries on through to Saturday evening. There’s loads of info out there for anyone wanting to look. May I direct you to:
The Flip Animation Festival (6-8 November at Light House, Wolverhampton) has been assembling a rather tasty line-up over the past little while, as documented on their nicely informative blog.
Highlights include:
A retrospective of work from Osbert Parker, best know for his cut out animation style mixed with live action; BAFTA & Screen WM Presents: Ninja Theory, the game developers behind the stunning Heavenly Sword and Kung Fu Chaos; Sita Sings the Blues, a screening of this modern classic and Indian epic; a day of Doctor Who animation treats and a real Dalek fleet will invade Light House!
The line-up is up on the Flip Festival website and tickets are available at very reasonable prices.
It’s competition time!
However, if you’d rather swipe a ticket for free then here’s your chance. There are two available, to be given separately (ie not as a pair) so there’ll be two winners.
All you have to do is leave a comment claiming your ticket, first two claimants will win. Rules are as before (except for the first one) and please use a proper email address so I can get in touch.
showcases the work of local, national and international designer makers through a full programme of exhibitions, workshops and special events. All exhibitions are free of charge and the festival promises to be a fascinating insight into jewellery-making today
will take place at a variety of venues across the city and region from 28th November 2008 – 21st December 2008.
Incidentally, is there anyone regularly blogging (or reporting in any way) about jewellery in Birmingham? I’ve not spotted anyone on my wanderings and would love to know if I’ve missed someone.
Gigbeth looks to be coming together quite nicely. There are some well recognised names signed up (Sugarhill Gang, Young Knives, Guillemots, Stanton Warriors, Kano, Fabio and so on) along with some good localness too (Einstellung, The Destroyers and a who’s who of local promoters organising their own nights).
For a second year, Jon at B:iNS has braved the Gigbeth MySpace Marathon, checking out each band that’s playing
From watching the interview below, it seems that although the music part of the festival serves as the shop window, the Gigbeth Conference is a bigger thing than many of us will appreciate
Incidentally, rather than churning out press releases, the Gigbeth blog is an engaging and lively thing written by a few people (I think – who writes each post is a bit of a mystery)
Last, and certainly not least, our Frankie sat down with Gigbeth’s organiser, Clare Edwards, for a natter about how the festival and conference started, what it’s all about and this year’s most exciting acts:
Birmingham’s international digital media conference, held at Millennium Point from October 23-24 as part of the Hello Digital festival
Tickets at the talks are free but, given the calibre of some of the speakers (impressive bods from Flickr, Pixar, Channel 4 and so on), really will need to be booked online pretty sharpish.
The splendid 7 Inch Cinema folk have announced the return of the Flatpack Festival which took a year off this year. The dates for Flatpack 3 will be 11-15 March 2009.
The website for 2007′s festival is still up including this description of what it’s all about:
The festival remains fiendishly difficult to summarise, but intrepid punters can expect to find shorts, animation, music documentaries, independent features, live soundtracks, discussion events, web oddities, installations, parties and plenty more besides – with a general focus on people using limited resources in imaginative ways
Details are still a little way off with venues just being booked up now. Stay tuned though.
Oh heck, and I’ve just noticed it also mentions this:
Tuesday 11 November at Warwick Arts Centre NOSFERATU
More Murnau, this time with the Matthew Eaton/Grandmaster Gareth score performed at Supersonic in July. (Sunrise next please!)
I saw half of this at Supersonic and can’t recommend it enough. Nor can Cat Bray for that matter.
A community consultation to look at the future structure of the company that organises Birmingham’s St Patrick’s Festival
16th October 2008
8.00pm – 9.30pm
Irish Club, High Street, Digbeth
Come along and share your ideas!
Get involved.
If you cannot make the meeting please email Karen on karenbarry22@yahoo.co.uk before the 23rd October 2008 with your views.
Incidentally, I remember some discussion last year about the merits of the parade’s website and hear that someone’s volunteered (and is now working) to put something different together.
Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head. Still here are they:
I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.
In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do. Or at least what I think looks interesting.
Friday evening
Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.
Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House. Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures. Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation. Could be interesting
At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)
Saturday
Saturday’s the tricky one. There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across. That said…
From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”. Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items. Plus there’ll be fireworks.
After that it’s Project X Presents for me. It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.
Sunday
If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’. At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
With just (only just) over a week to go before Artsfest the programme of events has just been released on the website.
With 500 or so events scheduled, picking through the programme isn’t easy but there is at least a ‘recommended’ section on the homepage. When I get a chance I’ll have a flick through and pick out the bits that I think look most interesting.
I’ve been feeling a bit off-colour the past couple of days, so apols for the lack of decent posting. If anything’s going to raise my spirits it’s the prospect of a sodding great whale and a huge robot both turning up in the city. It’s like Power Rangers or something.
The former comes courtesy of Claudia Losi’s Balena Project as presented by Ikon Gallery (and previously alluded to). A 25ft cashmere whale will be deposited by the escalators in The Mailbox from 24 Sept to 26 Oct. This is what it looks like:
Hmm, so it doesn’t look like a fearsome, city-levelling villain, more like me flopped on my sofa feeling sorry for myself.
The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars. The festival ends on 24 October.
There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary – the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.
For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn. There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.
Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too – that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.
Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors – Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.
Comedy escapes CiB’s notice most of the time so here goes a mention of the Birmingham Comedy Festival 2008, featuring an impressive list of talent, including the Edinburgh Festival’s newly crowned Perrier (or whatever) Award Winner, David O’Doherty.
Holding up Birmingham’s end are drag duo Patrick and Bernadine (Solihull Arts Complex, 4 Oct) and a whole host of local folk at ‘Wrote Under and Friends Comedy’ at the Kitchen Garden Cafe on . There’s possibly a few more localers too, but none I recognised on the festival’s listings page.
The Old Joint Stock Theatre is also hosting a day dedicated to Tony Hancock at the Old Joint Stock Theatre on 11 October.
It’s the big names that will stick out, of course, and there are plenty of those this year. As long as Dylan Moran, Mark Steel and Ted Chippington get the attention they deserve all will be well.
the very vague theme is ‘French Fancies & Freaky Kids Flicks’. Expect weird film from psychedelic animator Vince Collins and even weirder music. Entry is £2.50 with invite or £3.50 without; for more information, text OUTERSIGHT to 07887 956297, or e-mail outersight@live.com to join the mailing list
So if you’re not listening politely to another quite pleasant acoustic act at Moseley Folk Festival then perhaps pop down to this. Speaking of the Mofo Festival (as no-one is calling it, thankfully) it kicks off today and I hear that kids’ tickets have gone. When I bought a ticket the other day (pay in cash at Polar Bear and avoid a hefty booking fee from some other outlets) they were going quick – apparently it looks like Saturday might sell out but there should be tickets on the door if you get down in time.
Also on Friday there’s the free Reggae Rockz Festival 2008 from 8pm to 11pm in Centenary Square. Unfortunately on the Facebook event page the organisers spend all their time bleating about a lack of promotion from Artsfest and don’t get round to telling us much about what they’l be doing. The Beat are playing, that much is sure. The Reggae Rockz website manages to be even less informative. Ah well.
Saturday
It looks like Dholfest 2008 is the biggie here – an attempt to break the world record for the most dhol players in one place (currently 314 players in Sandwell in 1999). They’re aiming for 500 this time. This one will be held in Victoria and Centenary Squares.
Meanwhile, the Custard Factory will be hosting a day of hip hop with Mylz from Heducation and Madman the Greatest down to perform.
Sunday
Sunday is Kerrangfest day with This Beautiful Thief and The Levellers the only bands I’ve spotted so far.
This year the ShortCuts film programme will be extended slightly, with “a more relaxed, experimental programme of films made by local and international film makers” on the Sunday and a set of fims programmed in conjunction with Deaffest across the weekend. There’s more about those in this post from the Artsfest blog.
There’s much more to come and I’ll let you know when I see a full programme lying around the internet somewhere.
