Running from 19th-29th March the critically acclaimed Flatpack Film Festival returns to Birmingham for its ninth annual edition. An eleven-day event that has carved out a unique place in the UK’s film scene, Flatpack 2015 brings together a magnificently eclectic line-up with 120 events taking place at 30 venues across the city. The full programme combines new features, shorts, exhibitions, workshops, talks and special guests with an all-encompassing definition of ‘film’ in all its forms crossing into music and the arts.
Take your pick from Finnish animation sculptures, long-lost archives, a virtual dinner party, coffee demonstrations, slime moulds, live soundtracks, camera obscuras, woollen puppets and internet cats plus a global selection of films from exciting new voices as well as award winning, anticipated titles from feted film talent.
As ever, the variety of the programme is reflected in the selection of venues, from cafes and art spaces to a century-old cinema and a 300 year-old cathedral. A film gathering like no other, Flatpack provides an alternative route-map to Birmingham with walking tours, installations and pop-up screenings across the city, encouraging visitors to choose their own path through the cultural undergrowth. The Festival kicks off in the Jewellery Quarter, occupies the city centre over the first weekend, moving eastwards, before coming to rest at the Flatpack hub in Digbeth for the final weekend.
Known for its creatively inventive programming, Flatpack continues to rethink the LIVE CINEMA experience in a number of ways. The ninth edition does not disappoint; live soundtracks, a-v performance, benshi narrators and cut-out magic bend the idea of film into strange and wonderful new shapes.
During the 1920s the Japanese tradition of Benshi, a fine art of live film narration and commentary rooted in the traditions of kabuki and noh theatre helped to prolong the Japanese silent era well into the 1930s. Flatpack pays homage to these forgotten performers with a series of events: WAY OF THE BENSHI, where talking back to the screen is not just permitted but encouraged. Flatpack’s Opening Night screening of Japanese auteur, Yasujirô Ozu’s delicious silent gangster classic Walk Cheerfully (1930) (19 March, St Paul’s Church), is accompanied by a traditional live performance by actress Tomoko Komura giving commentary and bringing character dialogue and sound effects to life. Stan’s Cafe will be talking about new benshi-inspired work ‘A Translation of Shadows’ and providing live narration for a screening of Ozu’s Woman of Tokyo (1933) (27 March, Flatpack Palais). Ross Sutherland will also present his Edinburgh hit, ‘Standby For Tape Backup’ (25 March, mac birmingham) a one-man show in which he communes with his late grandfather via an 80s videotape of Ghostbusters; producing an affecting meditation on lost connections. There will also be a chance to have a go yourself, with workshops and open mic events.
The art of COLLAGE has seen a recent resurgence and this year’s Flatpack programme celebrates the cut-out and cut-up, whether in visual art, video and music. Original pioneers (People Like Us, Eclectic Method) rub shoulders with more recent upstarts (videos by Torn Hawk, Collabradors art exchange project). Paper Cinema’s ‘live animation’ take on The Odyssey (20/21 March REP Studio) depicts Homer’s island-hopping tales of gods and monsters and epic adventures as you’ve never seen them told before, with a joyful combination of cut-out animated characters and live music. A time-travelling voyage through one city, Citation City is the beguiling new labyrinthine work by acclaimed audio-visual artist Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) (28 March, Flatpack Palais). Pieced together from hundreds of movie clips filmed or set in London, this cine-patchwork is inspired by the wanderings of Walter Benjamin, and his Arcades Project, mapping fragments of Paris.
Birmingham Cathedral is a fitting home for a live score screening of Dziga Vertov’s hymn to cinema and the city, Man With A Movie Camera (21 March). A kaleidoscope of montage and camera trickery Vertov’s silent classic was recently voted the best documentary of all time by Sight & Sound. A rare chance to wander the halls of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery after hours takes on a supernatural tinge for the Edwardian Horror Show, for a special night of early spooky shorts and live musical accompaniment.
ANIMATION
is a main focus for this ninth festival edition, with a range of live performances, exhibitions and screenings exploring the increasingly fuzzy boundaries of animation. Birmingham City University’s new art school will host a day for industry professionals as well as for those individuals who are looking to make their way into the sector. ANIMATION AND BEYOND showcases the ever-growing parameters of animation through master classes, demonstrations, panel discussions and a keynote talk by 59 Productions, responsible for the visuals at the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony and Bowie at the V&A, among many others, combining technology and art to tell new narratives. Other guests will include Japanese visual music duo Usaginingen who create live opto-mechanical visuals using an ingenious ‘taco’ device in their first ever UK show, and Cartoon d’Or winners, Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels (Oh Willy!) the award-winning Belgian duo who will also lead a two-day stop-motion animation workshopCommunicating with Puppets (24-26 March Millennium Point, Birmingham City University Parkside).
An exhibition exploring the relationship between animation and interactivity, AMUSEMENT PARK (16-28 March, Birmingham City University Parkside & Millennium Point) makes its way to Birmingham from Finland for its UK premiere. Focusing on a group of contemporary animators, whose practice transcends screen-based work, this interactive exhibition from Finnish collective Animation Crank Handle includes Kaisa Penttilä’s immersive life-size zoetrope carousel, ‘Garbage Whirl’ Elli Vuorinen’s ‘Memory Trace’ in which viewers are invited to leave their mark in a bed-sized pin board and Aiju Salminen’s digital ‘Fortune Teller,’ which monitors its audience and spits out prophecies.
Continuing the Scandinavian connection, Flatpack also presents the UK premiere of THE DOGHOUSE (26- 29 March Flatpack hub, Minerva Works), a first person film installation by Danish artists Johan KnattruJensen, Mads Damsbo and Dark Matters. A dinner with a difference, you are seated at the table with four other diners. Donning Oculus Rift goggles, you find yourself plunged into the kind of fraught family situation that Dogme movies used to specialise in. Oculus Rift technology is still emerging, yet this immersive new work demonstrates the medium’s potential as an entirely new form of cinema.
THE FILMS OF ROY ANDERSSON (25-29 March, The Electric Cinema / mac birmingham) is a celebration of the Swedish director’s devastating, deadpan vision, to complement the UK release of his new film, the final part of his ‘living’ trilogy; Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, which won the Golden Lion at Venice. A chance to view Andersson’s absurdist comic universe, this retrospective programme offers one of the first opportunities to view the complete ‘living’ trilogy in the same place, alongside a selection of the director’s formative short work. Screening at The Electric Cinema fellow Swede Ruben Östlund’s latest incendiary domestic drama Force Majeure (21 March) heads up a selection of some of the most distinctive, brilliant, highly anticipated features to hit our shores over the next few months. An apparently selfish and offhand response to an avalanche triggers a seismic emotional explosion in a family dynamic. Ana Lily Amirpour’s feature debut A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (27 March) spins her own Middle Eastern heritage and Californian upbringing into a languid Vampire Western, shot in luminous black and white with a comics inspired mise en scène and an Iranian indie and English post-punk soundtrack to die for. Other feature highlights include Sion Sono’s yakuza hip-hop musical Tokyo Tribe (28 March), a delirious trip through the Tokyo underworld, while Ukranian director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s award-winning debut The Tribe (22 March) is an incredible achievement which tells the story of a deaf teenager struggling to fit into the boarding school system. The film is given added potency by being played out by deaf actors through sign language only.
Taking a more positive slant on youth gangs, Tomboy director Celine Sciamma’s latest film Girlhood (20 March) is a glorious coming of age drama about a quartet of young black Parisian teens from the working class suburbs. Amongst this year’s fresh crop of documentaries united by a theme of creativity under pressure is the UK premiere of Tim K Smith’s Sex and Broadcasting (28 & 29 March, The Electric Cinema). Described as a tale of life, liberty and independent radio, Sex and Broadcasting tells the improbable tale of listener-funded freeform US radio station WFMU. Following the New Jersey outfit’s choppy passage through the recession, it’s an inspiring film that raises all sorts of questions about survival and independent culture. As loyal WFMU fans, the Festival are delighted that Station Manager Ken Freedman will be broadcasting a special one-off live show from Birmingham (27 March) to mark the film’s premiere. Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s impassioned documentary, Uncle Tony, The Three Fools and the Secret Service (28 March, The Electric Cinema), a flashpoint of controversy in Bulgaria, tells a story of Communist-era state control and corruption. During the 1970s Bulgarian animation was the toast of international festivals and director Donyo Donev travelled the world collecting awards and plaudits. This debut documentary caused outrage in its home country by offering an alternative version of film history, arguing that a major force behind those films was never given due credit. Beats of the Antonov (27 March, The Bond, Digbeth) explores the role that music plays as a survival strategy and safety valve for people in the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, caught up in Sudan’s devastating and ongoing civil war. This thoughtful, moving film features some electric performances, including a sassy teenage choir and a DIY electric instrument using brake cables for strings.
The documentary programme strand also includes a special TRIBUTE TO PHILIP DONNELLAN (20-22 March, mac birmingham). Described in his Guardian obituary as “one of the greatest of all documentarists”, Philip Donnellan (1924-1999) worked with the BBC for over four decades. Made over the course of two tumultuous decades at the BBC in Birmingham, Donnellan’s films are a raw, poetic document of people who were rarely given a voice on television at the time. The weekend of screenings is a rare chance to revisit this work, and to hear from some of his contemporaries and collaborators.
A key influence on Philip Donnellan’s approach to filmmaking, the Radio Ballads were a series of groundbreaking and acclaimed programmes produced in Birmingham and broadcast between 1958-1964, featuring carefully-constructed interwoven sound tapestries of interviews and original songs. Along with producer Charles Parker and singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl, a young Peggy Seeger was a key creative force behind the Radio Ballads. Flatpack are privileged to welcome the legendary folksinger for a special in conversation event, looking back at a uniquely fertile creative period in Birmingham. With 5 competitive programmes vying for 5 awards (Best Short, WTF, Colour Box and 2 audience awards) this year’s eclectic SHORTS COMPETITION spans animation and artists’ film, comedy and documentaries.
Familiar names (Don Hertzfeldt, David O’Reilly) sit alongside exciting emerging talent and an open call for submissions. mac birmingham hosts the ever popular family programme COLOUR BOX (28 March), a day of screenings and drop-in activities for younger viewers in partnership with Anorak Magazine. Flatpack also presents Birmingham’s first taste of the annual Internet Cat Video Festival. The World Of Internet Cats brings together a global programme of the cutest, funniest and strangest selected by a team of under 5s, plus a screening of Vice Magazine’s documentary about arguably the most popular of e-cats, the fluffy, obsessive universe of Lil Bub and Friends (21 March, Old Joint Stock Theatre). Plus viewers of all ages are invited to have fun with slime moulds at the CULTURE CLUB (21 March, The Electric Cinema, BOM), a one-day series of events built around new documentary The Creeping Garden, exploring the unexpected creative possibilities around slime mould, lichen and bacteria.
MORE INFO & TICKETS:
http://flatpackfestival.org.uk/
