Created in Birmingham

Throughout the week of 22 – 27 March 2011, Birmingham will be treated to an eclectic programme of film and performance from Flatpack Festival and Fierce Festival, who’ve announced that they’ll be sharing dates next year.

Flatpack’s fifth festival will celebrate and take film to unexpected places; where new film fraternises with silent cinema and archives are re-imagined. Expect live soundtracks, workshops, installations, offbeat family screenings and a vintage mobile cinema which will roam across the city.

Fierce Festival returns after two years and the appointment of new Artistic Directors Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison.  True to tradition, spectacular projects and public interventions will collide with the kind of agenda setting performances and wild parties on which the festival’s ten-year reputation rests.

The full line up for each of the festivals is expected in February 2011, so keep an eye on their websites over the next few months, www.flatpackfestival.org / www.wearefierce.org

That title should perhaps be capitalised, but I’m not sure whether it’s a Proper Thing or just a loose kinda ‘it’s complicated‘ thing*.

Anyway, I’ve had an invite to the launch of a publication celebrating the ‘vitality, innovation and diversity’ of this group that comprises:

• Bass Festival
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival
• Fierce Festival
• Flatpack Festival
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Supersonic Festival

[* not sure what I'm implying here]

**UPDATE**

Ah, it is a Proper Thing, I’ve found a blog post about it and a picture too:

We’ve never had a caption competition on CiB as far as I can remember. Just a thought…

**Another UPDATE**

Ask and you shall receive – this was submitted to the CiB email address:

Splendid.

• We Could Be Heroes Clothing
  “This is We Could Be Heroes Clothing, an independant clothing company set up in the UK.” And this is their blog
• IdeasTap | Forums: CASTING – Actors needed for UK Film Council funded short film.
  “We are currently looking to fill a number of primary roles for a new project, ‘Fifty’, a short film to be made in association with Screen West Midlands as part of the UK Film Council’s Digishorts scheme.” I happen to know they’re after a bus too – can anyone help?
• The Birmingham Press
  I’d not spotted that they have a website
• Birminghamsalon’s Blog
  Audio from Birmingham Salon’s ‘What are libraries for?’ debate is up online
• Twitter / Deluka: On stage at #newtwitter launch party
  Nice…
• Twitter / Mostly Jazz Festival: News News. Mark Ronson AND …
  “News News. Mark Ronson AND Duran Duran in Swordfish Records on Tuesday 28th from 4pm. Head down to meet them!” Sorry for the late notice on this one
• Media Archive for Central England to release The Black Country 1969 DVD on 1st November – Switchboard
  “Media Archive for Central England are preparing to release the first of a number of retail DVDs that will be released in the coming months and years, and our first DVD release is The Black Country 1969″
• Son Of The Public Meeting | We Are Birmingham – The Shop
  Details of the shop emerge – a new logo, potential premises, company directors…
• Popular Music History – So What? – Discussing the political economy of popular music history
  Rob Horrock’s “PhD research scrapbook”. He’s the manager of Einstellung too
• Opportunity for filmmakers to screen their films as part of Hello Digital 2010
  Producers’ Forum have “a space at The Custard Factory Theatre, which seats 100 people on 21st and 22nd October from noon -18:30″. Give them a shout if you want to submit a film or two
• Digbeth is Good » Getgood Link: Art Stalking: 48 Sheet
  Nice vid about the 48 Sheets project with a link to Ana Milgram’s take on it/response
• Sister Tree
  “Established in 1997 by Sharon Jones and Margaret Polack, Sister Tree is a Theatre Production Company which concentrates on leading workshops in all branches of the art”
• Midland Actors Theatre
  “MAT is a leading touring theatre company. We are dedicated to telling stories. Our aim is to take stories, myths and legends from different cultures and traditions, and retell them in new ways”
• Mind Your Language – jon bounds
  Worth bearing in mind – “I’ve worked out over a few years that “private view” means two things: if a show is big and important it means “no entry unless you’re invited”, if a show is small or not that well known it means “please come, there’ll be free wine and nibbles”. It’s developed as art-jargon for some reason, and people who know know and those that don’t don’t. But it does put off people who might otherwise have liked to have attended—and the smaller shows could do with that, in fact they want it.” Now to decide if your show is big and important or if it’s smaller
• Black Country Creative Advantage
  “Black Country Creative Advantage is a 2-year project of the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation at the University of Wolverhampton and Longhouse/Multistory in West Bromwich”. They have a conference coming up on 9 Oct
• 2011 submissions call : Flatpack Festival
  “Lengthening nights and falling leaves mean it’s time to start cranking up for Flatpack”. Click the link for details on how to send your stuff in
• Birmingham Post – Galaxy radio puts Capital into Birmingham
  “A spokesman for the firm said no jobs would be lost in Birmingham as a result of the rebrand and that breakfast and drive-time shows would be locally made”

Synth Eastwood come to Birmingham for the Flatpack Festival. They turned up early, ran around taking photos (some in the CiB Shop – hello Aaron and Pete) and used them in the visuals for their show.

This video (spotted by More Canals) explains things better:

Ian and Pip from 7 Inch Cinema/Flatpack Festival have been nominated for The Hospital Club 100 which is:

a search for the most influential people in the creative and media industries, with the emphasis on current contribution and importance, not just the size of someone’s celebrity status, profile, bank balance, titles or past reputation

I’ve no idea what the award would mean but they say it’ll make their mums proud, which is good enough reason for me. Besides, Ian and Pip are good souls who do some good work. Speaking of which, they have some events coming up.

Trawling down the other nominees, I spotted Sue Collins in the ‘Art’ category. The blurb says this about her:

She has recently just completed a her first solo museum show at IKON in Birmingham, and in response was dubbed by the Mirror as the ‘worst artist in Britain’

Which was enough to secure my vote.

An article on the Guardian’s film blog has asked:

Can Birmingham’s eclectic lucky dip of a festival help rejuvenate its Digbeth base?

That festival being Flatpack. Now, I was always told that if the title of a newspaper article asks a question then the answer is most likely ‘no’. In this case, the answer given is revealed to be more like ‘well, first of all Digbeth needs a cash machine, some residents, public transport, a post office and some street lighting’. Which is fair enough.

Hanging the cultural hopes of  an entire area on one annual festival (no matter how good) was a bit of a reach anyway.

On another matter, two parts of the article jumped out:

Amazingly, points out George Clark, a curator who put together Flatpack’s Build Them in the Mind programme of short films, Birmingham still lacks a proper arthouse cinema. This in England’s second-largest city.

Which is true but needs tallying against Ian Francis saying:

“I hate it when people say Birmingham is apathetic” about film and culture, he says. “The interest is there”

Which is also true.

That there’s only one independent cinema in Birmingham is a bit of a shocker, but mac reopens soon and don’t forget the Light House is only just up the road.

Even better, there are quite a few people getting off their backsides to put films on away from the multiplexes. Film nights are rife – off the top of my head there’s Moving Pictures, Juniper Cinema, Kino Concrete, Filmrats, Popcorn, the Animation Forum events, BIFS, Screen Sunday at The Plough and occasional things at The Sunflower Lounge. Those are just the ones I can remember, too. Pretty much all of those are in pubs, which isn’t always going to be ideal and they’re unlikely to show the latest releases, but I think Ian’s right about apathy not being the problem.

• Kino Concrète: Two Thousand Maniacs! « More Canals than Venice
  Basement Bar (top of New St in the city centre) have a free film night. Noted.
• INTERVIEW: A Conversation with Dave Juste
  Scene Not Heard have a natter with Dave Juste from Subculture
• Midlands Media Awards launched
  This is aimed mainly at journos. Deadline for entries is 16 April.
• The Major Arcana « More Canals than Venice
  “The project included over 35 models, a team of make-up artists and prop/costume creation by BCU students”. Coming soon to the Works Gallery. Soon as in 12-16 April
• thisisfeed: jon burgerman at FEED
  “Jon Burgerman will be giving a FEED seminar on May19th”
• James Langdon shortlisted for Grafik Design Awards « We Are Eastside | Birmingham
  “James Langdon, designer of the We Are Eastside identity has been shortlisted for the Grafik Design Awards 2010″. Congrats, James!
• This Is Tomorrow
  This Is Tomorrow do club nights, have consistently good posters (by Lewes Herriot) and have a new website with mixes and such thereupon
• Ikon Eastside announces 2010 programme « We Are Eastside
  “Ikon Eastside has announced its programme of exhibitions for 2010, opening on Thursday 27th May with an installation from German sound artist Florian Hecker”
• Rediscovering Birmingham’s movie meccas | Film | guardian.co.uk
  “The Flatpack film festival’s Odeon bus tour unspooled the story of the rise and fall of Oscar Deutsch’s 1930s art deco picture palaces”
• Scene Not Heard Birmingham – Bands, Promoters and Local Music Portal: Scene Not Heard presents…THE SATURDAY MATINÉES
  This is an Interesting Idea. Having had a look at the problems with getting folks to go to gigs, these have decided to put bands on at Island Bar on Saturday afternoons

I’ve not talked about the shop very much which seems a bit remiss of me. As well as lots of things to spend your money on we’ve been using the space for other things.

We had Flatpack in last week – they gave out brochures and also installed David Hurley‘s installation ‘A Thought. An Afterthought‘. This week International Dance Festival Birmingham are taking up residence to promote the impressive line-up they’ve assembled.

For Good Friday and Easter Saturday Sarah Loves… has arranged for Sam Pierpoint to take up residence in the shop window:

Sam takes a plain pair of shoes of your choice and transforms them into original works of art entirely unique to you. Transporting her studio to the window of the temporary Bullring shop she will be inviting people to engage with her process and inspire new designs

But c’mere, there’s more. The following weekend the shop will be hosting a knit-in by Stitches and Hos. Click the link for all the info. Here’s the eflyer thing for it:

Multi-coloured lines are starting to appear all over the place. That’s Ikon Eastside above. They’ve got plenty of things happening there. Check out the rest of the schedule too and cop some tickets.

Other folks have written about what to see:

• Digbeth is Good – A notice for fans of Irish film, literature and that
• More Canals Than Venice – Music docs at Flatpack, More reasons to get excited about Flatpack

That’s ‘sting’ with a small ‘s’. See below.

I’ve not had much of a chance to check out the Flatpack Festival schedule yet. All I know is that it will be superb and will be worth attending to the fullest possible extent.

For example, the first thing I’ve looked at is a talk by Barry Purves:

Barry has animated and directed many prominent television series such as The Wind in the Willows, Rupert Bear, Bob the Builder and worked on feature films like Mars Attacks and King Kong. His own, often controversial, animated films have won over sixty major international awards and received OSCAR and BAFTA nominations

Which sounds ruddy impressive and interesting to me.

Also, just up on the Flatpack blog is the little sting that’ll be featured between screenings. It was animated by David Mourato, uses an original design and sound editing by Dave Gaskarth and Birmingham City University‘s Visual Communication department were involved in some way too.

• Mucking in : Flatpack Festival
  Volunteers wanted – good opportunity this. “Responsibilities will include front-of-house, venue installation, technical support, marketing and bar work, and all volunteers will have the opportunity to make good use of their festival passes”
• thisisfeed
  Kinda strange I wasn’t already subscribed to this, but I’ve recified that now. It’s the blog for the FEED Studio at Millenium Point. They do seminars and events and things
• D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Screenwriting workshops in Brum
  Animation ones too
• An Endless Supply | Language Films
  “Do you have any suggestions for films (shorts, features, artist’s films, etc.) that could fall under the theme of ‘language’?” If so then click the link and throw a suggestion in the comments box
• Sat Feb 6th – Keith Lawrence and Fat Digester… | Jibbering
  Jibbering’s last gig at the Hare & Hounds for a wee while and the proceeds are going to charity, so doubly worth a visit
• World Music Consortium West Midlands
  Now there’s an interesting thing. I hadn’t come across this before – a list of West Mids companies that do world music-related stuff
• ‘They were all living off one day out of date rare roast beef’ – An interview with James Rea « The Blue Whale Blog
• How effective is typography on mobile devices?
  Nathan from Smile has published his Visual Communications dissertation on Google Docs for all to see

Ooh, nice.

More info (but only a little).

Last weekend was one the most exciting and eventful of the year, but unfortunately I have come down with a nasty bug which meant I missed it all. I had plans to don my reporters hat and head off to see internationally revered film maker Mike Figgis speaking at the Boilerhouse (Thursday) Flatpack Festival (Friday / Saturday / Sunday) and The Haunting (Friday night). It seems I am not the only one Nicky from Digbeth is Good has also missed out on all the fun due to the mystery bug.

Floodgate Kino by sharl

Thank goodness for Flatpack’s guest blogger Eleanor McKeown. London based Eleanor works for quarterly cinema magazine Electric Sheep and popped up from the capital to experience the weird wonderment of Flatpack Festival, and to stay in the historic back to backs. Her very specific knowlege base and the fact she is an out of towner makes for interesting reading, though photos to illustrate the words would have been nice.

Last Thursday I joined a rowdy bunch of art buffs, film lovers and the Flatpack devotees on the Flatpack Festival installation trail. The trail started at 5.30pm at Urban Outfitters with an introduction from Flatpack director Pip and representatives from the Universities involved in the project. The festival starts tomorrow with ‘Curzonora’ at Town Hall, and the trail runs until 15 March.

The quality of the student work produced went beyond my expectations, which shows when students are given the opportunity to show work outside of University buildings and away from cosy degree shows things can get very exciting for both artist and art lover. I know when I was on a Fine Art degree course I thrived on finding unusal sites to exhibit my work and my practice was all the better for it.

I think it is easy to underestimate how much it means to students when they get asked to participate is such projects and how much they can get out of it. I commend Ian and Pip at Flatpack, and the Universities for taking the time to put this together as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Following on with my latest obsession with maps, I have put together the installation trail as a Google map with photographs and links to videos I took of the artists introducing the work on the launch night:

View Larger Map

Something strange is happening in the city. Shop window sale signs appear to have been mysteriously replaced with intriguing footage and tributes to long forgotten figures.

All will be explained on Thursday evening’s launch of the shop-window installation trail from Flatpack Festival. The Trail starts at Urban Outfitters [map] from 5.30pm. A tour will take the party around the shop locations on the night, ending at COW Vintage in Digbeth around 8pm. Tessa Burwood’s has written more about the trail for the BBC website.