4 Squares Weekender

Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 September 2013

To coincide with the opening of Birmingham's new central library, the city's major arts organisations are joining forces to put on the 4 Squares Weekender, a free city centre arts festival with live music, dance, art, circus, theatre, and film. The name refers to Brum's central squares – Oozells in Brindleyplace, Centenary, Chamberlain and Victoria. We'll be turning the Waterhall Gallery of Modern Art in Chamberlain Square into the Flatpack Film Café for the weekend. The programme will be a typically varied jumble of shorts, animation, archive discoveries, cult movies and live performance. There should be something to suit all tastes, and with a musical theme running through the whole thing. Also on show will be a selection of bold, eye-popping posters created at the Birmingham Arts Lab print workshop during the 1970s, and of course tea and cake will be available throughout.

Lightbox Cinema will also be running a drop-in silhouette animation workshop, inspired by master animator Lotte Reiniger. Participants will be able to create their own characters from paper cut-outs and then bring them to life at our illuminated lightbox animation stations. At 18:00 there will be a screening of all the animations made during the day. Suitable for ages 5+. No need to book, just turn up on the day (Saturday, 12-16:00).

Keep up-to-date with everything that's going on during the weekend on the official 4 Squares blog.

Saturday 7 September

12:00         Colour Box: Cinemajigs (70 mins) Toe-tapping cartoons from around the world, hand-picked from the Flatpack family programme. Suitable for all ages.

13:30         Animated Birmingham (50 mins) Homegrown animated shorts using a range of techniques. Includes a recent collaboration between Juneau Projects and pupils from a number of local schools, made at the Museum, and a couple of shorts from CBSO’s recent Silent Movie Animation Challenge.

14:45         Colour Box: Bugs and Beasts (60 mins) Cunning birds, wriggly insects, and singing monsters all feature in this selection of animated shorts. Suitable for all ages.

16:00         Songs and Dances of Death (45 mins) During March 2013 Birmingham Opera Company presented a series of pop-up performances of Songs and Dances of Death, a song cycle by Russian composer Modest Musorgsky. Documenting their every move was a young filmmaking team, and this screening includes three of the videos made during the tour. Plus two classic animations by Alexeieff and Parker, both inspired by Musorgsky’s work.

17:00         KINO 10 Shorts (60 mins) Exploring all manner of short films, from animation to music video, with some experimental and documentary thrown in for good measure, KINO 10 concoct a programme of shorts guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

18:00         Silhouette Animation Workshop Films (10 mins) A screening of all the films made during the animation workshop which runs between 12 - 16:00.

18:30         He Who Gets Slapped (dir: Victor Sjostrom, 1924, 80 mins) Beautiful, bizarre silent drama about a disgraced scientist (Lon Chaney) who becomes a circus clown. Also the first ever appearance of the MGM lion! Featuring live accompaniment by pianist John Sweeney.

12-16:00:  Silhouette Animation Workshop Throughout Saturday afternoon Lightbox Cinema will be running a drop-in animation workshop in the Waterhall, where you make a shadow film using cardboard cut-outs. Suitable for ages 5+.

Sunday 8 September

12:00         Colour Box: Cinemajigs (60 mins) Toe-tapping cartoons from around the world, hand-picked from the Flatpack family programme. Suitable for all ages.

13:30         Pakeezah (dir: Kamal Amrohi, 1972, 148 minutes) Showing in Bollywood’s centenary year, a landmark in Indian cinema. The tragic tale of a courtesan’s daughter who becomes famous for her mesmerising dances, Pakeezah was 14 years in the making and flopped on release but has since been recognised as a true classic. Starring Meena Kumari, who died shortly after the film came out, and featuring the angelic voice of Lata Mangeshkar. Certificate: PG

17:00         Musictube (60 mins) Here we pick out a selection of the most innovative and interesting music videos from the past 18 months. Featuring Dash Shaw’s Seraph from Sigur Ros’s hugely popular Valtari project, Tame Impala’s joyful animated video for Feels Like We Only Go Backwards by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling (Flatpack 2013 award winner too!), and the latest vid from Birmingham-based band Troumaca.