Another short from the Travelling Picture Show programme, made as a graduation film at CalArts by Nicole Mitchell. This one is part of Fantastic Planet, and always goes down well.
Our favourite short film review so far (not of the above) was: ‘Boring and weird and funny and sad’. All in ten minutes!
The Travelling Picture Show kicks off in Lichfield today. (I’m not there but apparently it’s going very well.) One of the most consistently popular films in the programme is a fifty year-old French short with hardly any dialogue about a boy and his balloon, and even if you haven’t seen it there’s a good chance you’ve come across something influenced by it.
For a start there’s a Juliette Binoche film and a stage production, and note the multicoloured balloon clusters currently floating about in Pixar’s Up and Sofia Coppola’s Dior ad. These films celebrate the feelgood side of The Red Balloon – if you want the brutal underbelly check out the Don Hertzfeldt cartoon Billy’s Balloon. Decidedly not for kids.
Two Birmingham film-happenings that have come to our attention…
Stalker Night
Friday 17th July @ AE Harris in the jewellery quarter
Stans Cafe present an evening devoted to one of their favourite films, including vodka and Zone images.
Shadow Shows
Sunday 26 July @ the Custard Factory in Digbeth
An ‘experiment in surreal horror’ by Pram and Filmficciones as part of the Supersonic festival. Scott has built a very impressive triple projector cradle for this. Oops, we just noticed that the show is already booked up. Well, there’s loads of other film-related stuff going on at the festival – including an installation at Moor St Station, AV performances by Tim Wright and Benton-C Bainbridge, and of course a Sunday night prog-synth blowout courtesy of horror soundtrack legends Goblin.
Also look out for music doc screenings at the Victoria pub during the summer, courtesy of Let’s Go Swimming.
Here’s another short film from the Travelling Picture Show programme, for anyone with noisy neighbours. This went down particularly well in the Shift_Time tent this weekend, and my two year-old son has become hopelessly addicted to the little mole.
[Wikipedia entry.]
This creature will be unveiled in Shrewsbury’s Quarry Park this Friday as one of the headline acts at the Shift_Time festival. It’s called Anima Umerus and the man who made it, kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen, has a vision of herds of these things roaming around beaches doing their own thing. They’re wind-powered, and you can see some in action on youtube.
