Oops, we plastered this everywhere else but forgot to put it on the blog…
Filmed by Chris Keenan (Prime Objective) and edited by Andy Goodman (Gambole).
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Here’s some photo evidence of Saturday night’s Digbeth Shuffle, a raucous party to cap off our season of dance films for IDFB. Entertainment included rockabilly trio The Magnificatz, DJs from Sugarfoot Stomp and spectacular go-go routines courtesy of The Actionettes. Not to mention an impromptu conga line at the end. (Image above by Neil Winkles, and the ones below from Urban75)
Nice little document of the 48SHEET Draw Off on 17 March, when an army of OHPs and illustrators descended on the Flatpack Palais. Video by Gary Wood, and music by Plone if we’re not mistaken.
The 48SHEET billboard show is all over Birmingham until Sunday. If you live or work in the city you may well have seen a good chunk of it already, but it’s worth doing a little tour if you get the chance.
You may think we’re in post-Flatpack hibernation, but it’s far from the truth. On the horizon are events with Ikon Gallery and Birmingham Book Bash (including the return of Neil Brand), but most imminently we’ve put together a season of dance films to complement International Dance Festival Birmingham. IDFB happens every two years, gathering performers from across the world in one place for three weeks, and just as it’s kicking off next Wednesday our first film will be screening at mac.
The tale of Philippe Petit’s barmy high-wire feats between the towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974, Man on Wire isn’t an obvious dance movie, but iconic Canadian dancer Louise Lecavalier has selected it as a sublime example of grace under pressure. She will be present to introduce the film, and if you’ve not yet seen it we’d strongly recommend the heart-thumping experience of watching it in a cinema. (For some background on Lecavalier, check out the brutal ‘Human Sex’. NSFW.)
Then beyond that there’s the UK premiere of the Trost Brothers’ wonderfully daft sci-fi dance-battle movie The FP, Pina in 3D, the return of dancehall doc and Flatpack highlight Hit Me With Music and Digbeth Shuffle, a knees-up at the Spotted Dog with 60s go-go troupe The Actionettes. Flatpack shorts fans should also check out Fever Chart, a selection of films including Mark Leckey’s marvellous VHS reverie on northern soul and rave culture, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore. Film tickets are now on sale through mac and Electric, and the full programme is at idfb.co.uk/lightfantastic.
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Picking up the baton from Flatpack this week is the ever-awesome Fierce Festival, once again bombarding Birmingham with an array of performances and interventions by artists from across the globe. Things of possible interest to Flatpackers include:
Holy Mountain Party – Harminder Singh Judge curates an evening inspired by Jodorowsky’s head-melting midnight classic, featuring special guest Oni Ayhun (aka yer man from The Knife).
Cupid – participatory performance at mac featuring real bows and arrows. A meditation on love, loss, fate, Greco-Roman mythology and the stars.
![Track]](http://www.flatpackfestival.org/blog/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/UnderSpag1.jpg)
Track – experience a live tracking shot under Spaghetti Junction.
Curious Sounds in Curious Spaces – an ear-opening exploration into the mechanics behind sound at Symphony Hall. Features amazing automata, Speak & Spells, retro games, music-making workshops with Juneau Projects and Mobile Sinfonia, an interactive piece with downloaded ringtones.
Also keep in mind that Still Walking continues until 1 April, and there are limited tickets still available for Birmingham Opera’s new work Life Is A Dream.
As always it’s very difficult for us to be in ten places at once during the festival, but once again an army of bloggers and photographers have helped us to fill in the gaps. To kick, off a few overviews…
Little White Lies roundup: “everything from a rabid Satanist to a Lionel Ritchie mermaid”;
The Quietus report: “an essential component in Birmingham’s cultural life”;
Eleanor McKeown is a regular (“For the past three years, Flatpack Festival has acted as my annual spring clean; a blast of inspiration that blows mental cobwebs away”), and once again she wrote an insightful report for Electric Sheep which includes the lantern show, Slow Boat, Laurel and Hardy and The Icebook;
Our own Sam Groves gave an inside view for Scene Birmingham;
Amanda Grist made it to Kit Downes, The Icebook and Suzan Pitt: “a wonderful source of inspiration yet again”;
James Kennedy did detailed reports on a couple of the walking tours as well as the unearthly Outer Sight Over Night;
Joe from Brainwash was around for the duration, from opening night up to Suzan Pitt on Sunday afternoon. He particularly enjoyed Alterations, which made us happy because it was one of our quieter screenings;
Claudia caught a show a day including Quadrophenia, Piccadilly and Vampire Motorcycle.
There were other writeups of Another Fine Mess on opening night by Andy Newnham, justathought and screen16;
As well as showing his own film, Edwin Rostron did a great writeup of the Suzan Pitt event, and there were also interviews with Pitt in Sight and Sound and AnOther Magazine;
Rickie Josen enjoyed Blank City and The Fairy;
After watching the Looking Glass animation programme MHVH gathered up a bundle of clips and trailers;
Cine-Vue reviewed Grandma Lo-fi and Patience (After Sebald);
Reporters on the Kit Downes show included Michele Turton and (somewhat more cryptically) vestesmonclerblog (near the bottom);
There are plenty of photos from Bring Your Own Beamer at Destroy Things Beautiful and the BYOB flickr stream;
Gif Shop artist Pieterjan Grandry documented the whole thing, and there were reports by Daniel Margetts and Tamar Whyte – who also reported on Outer Sight Over Night;
Neil Fox decided that Psychomania was “simultaneously one of the worst and best films ever”;
Yarn have listed all the participants in their brilliant Citizen Kane project. Jon Bounds, Adrian Slatcher and Cormac Faulkner also blogged about their chunk of the story, and the Deadly Serious film contribution is now up on vimeo;
Bobbie Gardner took snaps at the Kismet Cafe;
James Dexter on 16mm Cartoon Rock;
Natalya Paul on Salon des Refuses;
Ross Cotton on The Uncanny World of Robert Morgan;
And finally the walking tours: Adrian Murphy explored Birmingham Noir; Matt from Clever Cherry and James Kennedy did Shaping Cinema; and Emma Morley from MACE went On Location.
If you’ve got anything to add please post in the comments or drop us a line.
The festival team have been doing a fair impression of zombies these last couple of days, as we sift through the debris sending things home and tidying up. (Do zombies tidy? Perhaps zombie wombles.) In any case, general consensus seems to be that this was the finest Flatpack yet. Excellent crowds, lovely guests, reasonable weather and a proper buzz all over Birmingham. We did it!
Back soon with the usual battery of images and writeups, but in the meantime thank you so much to everyone who helped; all the venues who hosted us; the organisations who partnered with us; the tech crew who pulled the levers; the funders who put in money; the hundreds of artists and filmmakers who shared their work; the audiences who showed their appreciation (hooray for clapping between shorts!); and of course to our amazing team of volunteers. Let’s do it again sometime. xx
Flatbook
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