Flatpack Festival 2021 Online: Highlights
Skwigly
Flatpack kicks off a four-month season of events on 21 May with a full-to-bursting programme of the very best filmmaking from around the globe.
- BAFTA-award qualifying short film competition returns with over 30 UK premieres
- Feature and documentary film programme including artist portrait doc Tomorrow is Saturday about the life of Seán Hillen, the incredible animated feature Kill it and Leave This Town and long-awaited Birmingham Central library doc Paradise Lost
- Special events including live performance premieres, guest comedian commentators, beer and film pairings and a life modelling class
In 2020, Flatpack adapted their physical festival programme at speed in order to give us Flatpack Festival: the Home Entertainment Edition. Continuing to roll with the punches, 2021 will see the delivery of a 4-month season of events, online, outdoors, and, all being well, in Birmingham cinemas and auditoriums. The season kicks off on the 21 May, when Flatpack will return to our home screens for festival no.15 with a playful, thought-provoking assortment of screenings and special events, tailored for a virtual environment.
Audiences are invited to explore new ways of experiencing the festival, from short films over breakfast to film and drink pairings, joining a worldwide community connected through exceptional film. Highlights include:
Academy Award Nominee Sam Green is known for his innovative live documentaries, having collaborated with bands such as Yo La Tengo, Fugazi, and Kronos Quartet. He’s currently working on a new project with JD Samson (Le Tigre) called 32 Sounds, but in the process they have created something like a cross between a radio documentary, a sound walk, and ASMR. Audiences are encouraged to listen to 7 Sounds in bed, whilst Sam and JD take you on a sonic journey exploring some of the most fascinating sounds your ears will ever hear.
ANNAM and Emily Scaife
A couple of years in the making, this British Council funded project sees an unlikely collaboration between two of the most interesting emerging musicians making waves in Vietnam at the moment, and British visual artist and animator Emily Scaife. They have been commissioned to make a live audiovisual performance piece using the brilliant Saigon Supersound project as a starting point. The world premiere will be unveiled at the VCCA in Hanoi, and streamed to the rest of the world during the festival. World Premiere.
Short film Competition
The BAFTA-qualifying short film competition programme continues to be one of, if not the most distinct in the UK. Boasting over 30 UK premieres, and exploring subjects such as deepfake technology as grief therapy, personal responses to the Black Lives Matter protests, and how we inhabit our own bodies. Spanning all genres, these films are boundary-pushing, and represent the very best in contemporary filmmaking.
Screendance Competition
Joining forces with the Birmingham International Dance Festival, and independent curator and filmmaker Sima Gonsai, we’re presenting two programmes of short films (several of which are UK premieres) that span both Flatpack 2021 and BIDF (which starts a few days later). The winner of the brand new Screendance Award will be announced at Flatpack’s awards ceremony on the closing weekend.
Colour Box
The festival’s family strand features the very best short films from around the world, and the UK premiere of the Mexican animated feature A Costume for Nicholas about a young boy with Down Syndrome who helps his cousin overcome his frequent nightmares through a series of otherworldly Studio Ghibli-esque adventures.
Features & Docs
This year’s selection includes:
- Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon’s son Jack Henry Robbins VHYes – shot his fourth feature on VHS and digbeta tapes over 15 days.
- Documentary portrait of collage artist and photographer Seán Hillen Tomorrow is Saturday, followed by a collage masterclass by Birmingham Collage Collective;
- the world premiere of Paradise Lost – Andy Howlett’s documentary about architect John Madin’s controversial brutalist building, Birmingham Central Library;
- New features giant fly comedy Mandibles, Ivory Coast’s Oscar shortlisted Night of the Kings, and Viktor Kosakovskiy’s meditative portrait of a family of pigs, Gunda;
- and British documentarian Marc Isaacs’ new film The Filmmaker’s House.
Voices of Isolation
Sonita Gale’s feature doc Voices of Isolation reveals the vast social and economic inequalities in our system that have been further exposed by the pandemic, focusing in particular on how it has revealed the need for reform in the way our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities are valued. A work-in-progress screening will be followed by a discussion featuring the director, social commentator Patrick Vernon, and Windrush campaigner Paulette Wilson’s daughter Natalie Barnes.
Skittish
Over the last year, American technologist and co-founder of XOXO Festival Andy Baio has been working tirelessly on a brand new project – a playful virtual space for online events called Skittish. Flatpack will be the first UK festival to make use of the technology, ensuring the online experience of the festival still has a strong social element.
Trash Film Night
Birmingham’s irregular Trash Film Night features hosts David and Luke, with a special guest comedian, talking the audience through the very best bits of one of the very worst films ever made.
Short Film Beer Pairing
Teaming up with independent brewery DigBrew, Flatpack have curated a selection of classic short films paired with some of DigBrew’s finest beverages. Enjoy a pint of the very special Waka / Jawak (named after Frank Zappa’s fourth album) while feasting your eyes on the mind-melting work of Zappa’s collaborator Bruce Bickford.
Produced during the first lockdown in 2020, Nude Triumphant is a short film that combines painting from life with experimental digital animation. Produced by a community of Queer and intersectional life models and artists, the film encourages us to pause and reflect, discovering our unique identities in stillness and building a healthier relationship with time and with ourselves. After the screening, there will be a life modelling class hosted by ‘Professor Jo Calderwood’.