On this day: Flatpack Festival No.1
Last night I dug out the evaluation report from the first Flatpack Festival in 2006.
It begins by setting the scene:
"The festival office is an attic space at a house in Birchwood Crescent, Balsall Heath, equipped with two computers, two phones, a printer and a fax. 7 Inch Cinema is currently registered as a sole trader and in the process of setting up as a company."
Already I’m thinking ‘don’t do it, you fools!’ The fools in question were myself and my then partner Pip McKnight. We had a four year-old kid downstairs, and another one on the way. As the report makes clear, we didn’t really pay ourselves to put on this festival. We did make a beautiful brochure though, with the help of our chain-smoking design wizard friend Gas. As per the report, ‘We wanted to send out a message that this was not your average film festival.’
The response from the press was mostly positive. The Guardian found it ‘hard to imagine this being anything other than fun.’ The Metro was a bit more grudging: ‘It’s a toss-up whether you’ll find yourself admiring the end result or bemused as to how it all fits together, but the festival’s eclectic energy is undoubtedly impressive.’ The ‘E’ word is a recurring theme in Flatpack writeups, and fair enough – right from this first edition we were stirring together Telly Savalas, fairground bioscopes, Estonian animation and heavy metal karaoke.
The festival happened much earlier in the year back then, kicking off on January 19th. (I’m not sure why we thought this was a good idea.) That day guest artist Vladimir landed from Portland and stayed in our spare room. She brought with her a suitcase full of black Viewmaster viewers which would provide a show-stopping moment at the Electric the following night, as 100 people all went ‘ker-chunk’ at the same time.
To this day our trustees chastise us for being too self-critical in our funding reports, and this is clearly in Flatpack’s DNA. Here we acknowledge that the technicals were a mess: ‘We hope to display a little less ramshackle charm and a little more military precision at Flatpack no.2.’ We premiered a heavy metal documentary, but ‘unfortunately we were unable to lure one of the film’s stars Tony Iommi from his Warwickshire mansion.’ And nobody got paid properly: ‘The festival’s long-term future cannot depend on goodwill and favours.’
On the plus side we smashed our audience targets, got some excellent coverage and the feedback was amazing. What really comes across is the love that went into the whole thing, and the special buzz it generated. We even came up with an alibi for our wilfully eclectic programme, which still applies today: ‘we hope that the festival’s jumbled, friendly nature reflects the city that it takes place in.’
Twenty years on, this word document gives me all the feels. I doff my cap to the funders who took a punt on these idealistic upstarts. (Notably Birmingham City Council, the very first to give Flatpack a grant.) I’m sobbing-at-the-Oscars grateful to all the friends who believed in it and pitched in. I marvel at how we pulled it off. I marvel more at how we managed to raise kids, feed ourselves and stay vaguely sane in the process. I’m struck too by some of the things that we’ve lost since. Film festival brochures. Fax machines. The Guardian Guide. A flourishing local media that will cover cultural events in depth. The Electric (for now).
Last year I went to see a performance called Time Critical at the Rep, created by the brilliant Stan’s Cafe to mark their own anniversary. The script narrates the last 34 years in the history of one theatre company in parallel with the history of the world, with a chess clock switching between the two. It showed how the personal gets woven into the story of the work – all those births and deaths, unions and break-ups, bike-thefts and house-moves. At the same time, it was a reminder that something of earth-shattering importance which consumes you for decades can also – viewed from another angle – look ephemeral and insignificant.
No doubt there will be times in our twentieth birthday year when I give in to old-fart nostalgia. For the most part though, it’s more fun to look forwards. This week we have a meetup with some of the city’s community exhibitors. When we started 7 Inch Cinema in the early 2000s there were one or two filmnights in Birmingham. Now at least 20 small outfits are putting on regular pop-up screenings in different settings for different audiences. Whatever chill winds are blowing out there, people will always feel the need to get together in the dark and watch a film.