With everything from immersive murder mystery screenings to classic cinema under the stars, Flatpack Festival’s nineteenth edition saw nine days of cinematic adventures in venues across Birmingham. The BAFTA-qualifying short film programme returned with a new animation award, a musical focus paired new commissions with rare archival finds and special guests included Texan film composer Graham Reynolds and Midlands musical legend Noddy Holder.
The 18th edition of Flatpack Festival took over the streets and sceens of Birmingham for ten whole days from 10-19 May 2024. Featuring films and performances from across the globe spanning art, tech, music and spoken word. Browse the festival archive below for what we got up to, and download the festival foldout here.
From 16-21 May 2023 we celebrated not only festival no. 17, but also twenty years as an organisation! We popped up in spaces across Birmingham with a programme of mind-altering AV performances, brilliant music documentaries, exciting guest programming and a delectable smorgasbord of films long and short.
Flatpack 2022 was our first in-person festival since 2019 (due to the pandemic). We popped up all over Birmingham with everything from comedy, cocktails and chemistry to punk puppet shows and cinema walks. Here's everything that happened in just two minutes:
Thanks to everyone who joined us for Flatpack Festival 2021! We had a blast and we hope you did too. You can still access the bonus features, and take a look at our 2021 award winners over on the blog.
#### WELCOME TO FLATPACK 2020 Welcome to the site of our first online festival, which took place 1-17 May, at your place, via this very website. If you missed it, or simply want a stroll down memory lane, you can still read all the interviews and access other special bonus features (including all of our Colour Box Crafting workshops, led by Emily and Nugget the rabbit) in the news section below. You can also check out which films took home each of the Short Film Awards at our very fancy virtual awards do. ### [Flatpack 2020: A User's Guide](https://flatpackfestival.org.uk/news/flatpack-at-home-a-users-guide/) ### ### [Calendar PDF](https://res.cloudinary.com/flatpack/image/upload/v1588671402/FP2020_schedule_2.pdf) Flatpack is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the British Film Institute, and by Birmingham City University. Although there is no charge for accessing any of the programmes, if you are able to [make a donation](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=GXKFCKDC7PVA4&source=url) to Flatpack then please do consider it - your support will help to make future events possible.
The one when it snowed! "Despite the freezing cold, it was a pleasure to roam the streets of Birmingham over the Easter weekend, from the city’s oldest cinema to various venues in the former industrial area of Digbeth, to sample the filmic delights on offer at Flatpack. A treasure trove of a festival, it is one of the most idiosyncratic film events in Britain, celebrating the whole range of what cinema can be through a programme curated with tremendous care, intelligence and an infectious, insatiable spirit of adventure." - *Virginie Selavy in [Sight and Sound](https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/festivals/flatpack-2013)*
**Flatpack no.6** **14-18 March 2012** A tricky one in terms of funding, but nonetheless we endeavoured to put on 70+ events in more than 20 different venues. Daft buggers. For the first time we teamed up with Colmore BID on the Film Bug programme, kicking off wth a Cathedral-full of people making pant-ripping sound effects under the instruction of pianist Neil Brand. The film in question was peerless Laurel and Hardy two-reeler Battle of the Century, and the boys’ Birmingham connection was explored via our fourth Patron Saint Charlie Hall – a regular stooge in Hal Roach comedies who hailed from Washwood Heath. 2012 was the first time we worked with Davy and Kristin Maguire, creators of miniature projection marvel The Icebook, and it also saw a fog-bound, waterborne screening of Carpenter’s The Fog on the Ikon Slow Boat. Those intrepid souls who experienced Outer Sight: Over Night declared it transformative, while on the final day fifteen different teams recreated the entirety of Citizen Kane in a range of media for Five Stories High. (Amongst them, Paper Cinema’s Nic Rawling, who had come for a rest and found himself cooped up in the Paragon for three days rendering the Xanadu sequence in cut-out card.) Restless as ever, the festival hub found a perfect home in the Custard Factory’s old dance studio. Over the weekend it hosted a White Hills gig, a BFI Flipside screening of Psychomania, a magic lantern show by Mike and Tre Simkin, and a packed-out OHP Draw-Off which managed to round up just about every surviving OHP in the West Midlands. In the unit next door, ingenious and unfeasibly amiable Belgian artist Pieterjan Grandry hosted a ‘Gif Shop’ for three days, creating turntable animations with all-comers. Animation-wise it was one of our finest years, among other things featuring the films of Robert Morgan, one of the first chances to see Julia Pott’s excellent Belly, and a beautiful selection of rare 16mm cartoons from Canadian curator Kier-la Janisse. All of this capped off with a retrospective for special guest Suzan Pitt, whose intuitive commitment to ploughing her own furrow was an inspiration. Adil Ray introduced formative comedy Blazing Saddles, and another homecoming hero was surname-dodging Lawrence (Felt, Denim), who gave terrific Q&A for a full house of devotees after bittersweet portrait Lawrence of Belgravia. Design duties were taken up by Robin and Harry from An Endless Supply, and in terms of customer experience it was gratifying to have feedback cards comment on Flatpack’s increasingly polished presentation. (Albeit with a hefty dose of ramshackle still in the mix. I still have nightmares about the Masonic rituals required to navigate the menus on HDCam players.). These signs of professionalism were thanks in part to the influence of ops whiz Selina, and more broadly perhaps we were beginning to get the hang of it. The experts say that once you get past festival no.5 things get easier, and in some ways it’s true…
**Flatpack no.5** **23-27 March 2011** A bit of a pivotal year, this one. We received the final instalment of our Film Council funding, shortly before the ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’ saw it close down. It was the swansong for co-director Pip McKnight, who after five glorious years had decided that she wanted to deliver babies for a living instead. Likewise, designer Gas left us for the bright lights of London, leaving only a cloud of Cutter’s Choice and yet another nifty brochure (in newspaper form for the first time). The blow of these departures was softened by the arrival of Selina Hewlett and Sam Groves, both of whom would become key members of the team. Once again Vivid was transformed into the festival hub, this time rechristened ‘the Dirty End’ and co-hosted by Fierce Festival, with whom we shared dates for the first and only time. I’m pretty sure this was the balmiest edition ever, with guests and punters strolling down Heath Mill Lane in shorts and flip-flops (though the memory can play tricks). Perambulating the city was the recently-restored Vintage Mobile Cinema, screening archive films to curious hordes, and soon-to-be Flatpack regular Ben Waddington hosted a walk for the first time – in this instance revealing some of the city’s forgotten picturehouses. Live treats included Shadow Shows, a new piece by Pram and Scott Johnston, and a mesmerising turn by Hiromichi Sakamoto combining cello and angle-grinder. Wilson and Conway’s every minute, always was a ‘headphone performance’ for two at the Electric which drew on Brief Encounter, and the film itself was presented by the irrepressible Richard Dyer. Our patron saint was Iris Barry, an unsung daughter of Birmingham whose trajectory led from 1900s Ward End to Bloomsbury bohemia, from becoming the first woman to write film reviews for a daily newspaper to setting up the first national film archive at MOMA in New York. Among the screenings were China’s first independent animated feature, Uruguyan cine-reverie A Useful Life, the short films of Al Jarnow and a midwifery-themed programme in honour of Pip. Tony Garnett came to introduce the provocative, gritty Prostitute (sparking some interesting Balsall Heath conversations), and Czech marvel Daisies screened in memory of Trish Keenan. Award for the most rambunctious, eye-opening Q&A of the festival must go to Chris Needham, emerging from rural East Midlands seclusion to discuss his legendary 1992 video diary.
**Flatpack no.4** **23-28 March 2010 ** 2010 was the first and only time we produced a glossy brochure, perhaps in an attempt to look more grown-up, and proceedings kicked off in St Martin’s Church with a beautiful new live score to Murnau’s Sunrise by Conservatoire-trained jazz pianist Alcyona Mick. Our hub was at Vivid on Heath Mill Lane, a little cosier than Floodgate Kino the previous year and most memorably the venue for the masked lederhosen shenanigans of the Uncle Hans-Peter Party. What really stands out from this year was a couple of brilliant guests. Phlegmatic magician Julien Maire spent two days sat in the corner of the old Central Library, making printed text appear from his finger, and then slayed us with his mind-blowing slideshow-with-a-difference Demi Pas. Dublin collective Synth Eastwood stepped off the plane and hit the ground running, making hundreds of new friends on their travels around the city while also gathering visuals for a Friday night blow-out that featured Clark, Health and Efficiency and cartoon pranksters Gangpol & Mit. Ben Wheatley came to introduce his first feature Down Terrace, and was very patient while we fannied around with the projection. Morgan Quaintance assembled a night of high camp bad taste including Pink Flamingos and Birmingham legend Twiggy (not the model). Ghost Box’s evening of music and film was a big draw, as were – somewhat surprisingly – the disorientating visions of Takashi Ito. On an archive tip, we doffed our cap to Oscar Deutsch with an Odeon bus tour led by historian Chris Upton. (Chris, a regular Flatpack contributor, died in 2015. It’s still very hard to believe we won’t be able to rope him in for any walking tours or talks in the future.) Family strand Colour Box made its first appearance, among other attractions offering an Ooglies workshop in vegetable animation. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Dogtooth and Trash Humpers left us with various indelible images. Alum Rock troubadour Stephen Duffy received an overdue tribute from Memory and Desire, while other music docs covered Devendra Banhart, Gruff Rhys, Norwegian metal and the Iranian underground. PS: this rather [downbeat 2010 Guardian piece on Flatpack and Digbeth](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/apr/06/flatpack-film-festival-digbeth-birmingham), in which the festival director admits “I’m not very good at Birmingham PR”, is worth a read.
**Flatpack no.3** **11-15 March 2009** The one with the bird perched on the 3. With the Film Council giving us three whole year’s worth of money, we can start thinking a bit bigger. A new office at the Custard Factory, an actual grown-up board, and a PR company (Margaret) who really get what we do and find ways of turning it into press stories. We move to March, where we’ve lodged ever since, and start concocting a programme double the scope of previous incarnations. One of the things that worked best about the 2009 festival was our hub, a warehouse on Floodgate St (now Boxxed). Ok, so it was bloody cold at times, with a series of increasingly huge space heaters attempting to inject some cosiness, but a group of theatre design students from BCU did a brilliant job of translating Gas’ festival identity into a 3D space. Alongside them an army of talented folks built a cinema, created installations (including Rod MacLachlan’s ethereal rotating paint-can) and rehearsed film soundtracks. These were unveiled on opening night at the Town Hall, a series of inspired compositions by the Destroyers threaded together by the story of early film showman Waller Jeffs (the first of our Patron Saints). The Unpacked discussion day works really well, with terrific guests including Paper Cinema and the insatiably curious and lovely David O’Reilly – just embarking on a stellar animation career. An enduring Flatpack cringe moment is painting Guy Sherwin’s mirror white just a couple of hours before his Man with Mirror performance, while he looks on patiently but with some anxiety. (One of the downsides of festival organisation is inviting your heroes to come and watch you run around like a pillock.) A projectionist friend tips us off to a stash of 50s cine-films from a Northfield boys’ club; bringing them to the big screen with live piano and original members in the audience is a joy. The features are great this year: Lorenzo Fonda’s street art doc Megunica; Djibril Diop Mambety’s restored Touki Bouki; Welsh reverie Sleep Furiously; and a coup with vampire sell-out Let the Right One In. Kids’ screenings make their first appearance, amongst them The Red Balloon, Komaneko and Yo Gabba Gabba, and visiting directors include Kieran Evans and Jeanie Finlay. Sunday night closes with a small handful of us cleaning out the bar and bouncing around the remains of Floodgate Kino.
That difficult second festival was not too difficult, thanks to a slightly less miserly budget and a bigger team. We are still organising everything from our attic at this stage, which does get a bit much during holidays when the kids stomp up the stairs or when work experience placements have to find their way into deepest Balsall Heath from the bus. [Read more](http://flatpackfestival.org.uk/our-projects/past-festivals/flatpack-2007?stage=Stage)...
**Flatpack no.1** **19-22 January 2006** The first festival you put on is a tough one to top. Never again will you blunder in with quite the same zeal and naivety, a dangerous cocktail that can make anything possible. We had been organising regular events at the Rainbow for a couple of years when we heard talk of a pot of city council money for arts events. Their small grant was matched by the Arts Council and we were away, plotting three days of events from our attic in Balsall Heath. As the brochure deadline grew closer our designer Gas pretty much moved in up there, filling the bin with Cutter’s Choice packets and empty tins of Dax-wax. For some reason we thought mid-January was a good time for a film festival. I remember driving down wintry Walsall lanes at night to fetch our first batch of brochures, and just before our volunteers meeting we found out that co-founder Pip was pregnant. Other joyous discoveries included: the sound experiments and wonky cartoons of [Henry Jacobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jacobs), who made us a bespoke film from his hot-tub in Marin County; a documentary on Berlin club Tresor, featuring local techno luminary Tony Surgeon; and the [Vladmaster Experience](http://www.vladmaster.com/), which combined hand-crafted 3D tableaux with music to create something strange and magical. All viewed through shiny black Viewmasters, imported in an enormous suitcase from Portland. The action mostly revolved around the Electric and Sunflower Lounge, home to a culminating Super 8 Wake in honour of the soon-to-be-discontinued K40 stock. Port, organ music, black veils, and an impromptu rendition of ‘Don’t Take Away My Kodachrome Baby’ by Paul Murphy which provided the perfect coda. Nobody got paid very much and it was exhausting, but we felt we were onto something.
