The annual event grew from the city’s local 7 Inch Cinema, originally a mixed-media filmnight at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth. It took place for the first time in 2006, produced by 7 Inch Cinema, and supported by Arts Council England, UK Film Council, Birmingham City Council.
Highlights this year will include the premiere of the BritDoc film One Mile Away, a documentary directed by Penny Woolwock about the grassroot attempts to forge a lasting peace between two warring gangs in inner city Birmingham, the Burger Bar Boys (B21) and the Johnson Crew (B6). The film sparked from a hip-hop musical Woolcock filmed in north Birmingham in 2009.
Orientated around the Flatpack Palais, the festival has embraced locales in the city’s post-industrial quarter to the south of the city centre, screening films in churches and warehouses alongside more traditional venues like the century-old Electric Cinema, while also providing live scores, accompanying parties and cycle-powered screenings.
This year will also see an extension of the Film Bug programme, with free screenings, events and installations in Birmingham city centre.
In 2013 it will be found in a Victorian building which started life as the Deritend Free Library. Flatpack will be collaborating with students from Birmingham School of Architecture to transform it into a screening space and social hub. A Kickstarter campaign is underway to help make this ambitious project happen.
Confirmed highlights for the seventh edition in 2013 include:
The Adventures of Prince Achmed – Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 cut-out fairy-tale is accompanied by a new live score from Dutch ensemble the Sonja Van Hamel Trio.
Shynola – the filmmaking collective present a selection of music videos, and talk about their new feature film The Red Men.
Demdike Stare – a live AV set will be coupled with “a visual barrage” of obscure VHS horror. Their stated aim is “get a load of ingredients, throw them in a cauldron, set fire to it and see what happens.”
Revisiting the Arts Lab – Arts labs sprang up across the UK throughout the 60s, Birmingham’s Arts Lab continued long after the others had died out and became fertile ground for new talent across a range of artforms. Flatpack will explore the Lab’s legacy, gathering key contributors, screening relevant works, and displaying some of the posters that emerged from their screen-print workshop.
