A flatpacked week-end · March 16th, 2009
Just came back from Birmingham where I attended the closing days of Flatpack, a 10-day event put together by old pals 7 Inch cinema, now (already!) in its third edition. It’s good to remember that 7 Inch started life as a “family business”, running DIY monthly film nights at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth back in 2003 (I still have the very first flyers!), and it seems that they’ve kept going that way without selling their soul.
Eclectism and spontaneity is the name of the game in this quirky little festival; The clash of retro-modern graphics with victorian-punk aesthetics is spot-on, thanks to the visual craft of Gas. Many of the events were free and casual, reinforcing its vocation as an antidote to mainstream/commercial media, offering a mind-opening and enlightning glimpse into independent/amateur film-making and unearthing what the experience of early cinema must have been like before Hollywood and multiplexes came along – or possibly pointing at what moving-image might become as a democratised and participatory art-form for the future?
The programme successfully negociated its way around an array of strands pulling together the weird, the experimental, the kitsch or the serious, a bit like if Onedotzero, Aurora, Raindance and the London Short Film Festival had collided together, consequently attracting a well mixed audience. Overall, the greatest thing about the festival was the shameless balance between old and new, together with an uncompromised and resourceful emphasis on homegrown stuff. This reconcilation of past, present and future is refreshing – something that can’t be said about the plans for the new central library in Birmingham – more on this later!)
Highlights included a presentation and film programme compiled by Berlin-based animator David O’Reilly, and a panel discussion and screenings on the work of Birmingham-born architect John Madin.
http://www.flatpackfestival.org
Leave a response or trackback from your own site.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:19 am
[...] Meme Cortex got lost in Digbeth after watching Sleep Furiously. >> Extras Olivier Ruellet’s flatpacked weekend; Mubarak Elmubarak on In a [...]