Another knitting film for Friday afternoon… This here is a knitting machine made out of LEGO by the resourceful Thomas Johnson, whose site also features some other contraptions made with little bricks.

Compton Verney gallery in Warwickshire asked us to put together something filmy which will complement their Fabric of Myth exhibition, opening next month. We settled on a programme of knitting-related shorts and animation, to screen throughout the weekend of 19/20 July with free needles, wool and knitting tuition for those who’d like to have a go. More info soon, but in the meantime here’s a youtube clip of one of the films: a promo for ‘Les peaux de lièvres’ by Canadian duo Tricot Machine. The animation by Simon Laguanière was made using over 700 frames created on an electronic knitting machine.

With special thanks to David at Dare to Care records.

PS:: Those of a knitting/crocheting persuasion in the Birmingham area may be interested in Stitches and Hos, gathering at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath on Tuesday 27 May.

With the Rotunda reopening last week it seemed a good time to show Rosalind Fowler’s film about the building’s past. Calling her work “salvage anthropology”, Fowler combines interviews with some of the inhabitants of the old Rotunda - including original architect Jim Roberts - with footage of the building shortly before it was closed down for refurbishment. It’ll be showing at 7inch this Sunday, after Travelling for a Living.

This industry writeup gives some background on the new version, introducing us to some nice building terms like “spandrel panels”.

Fancy eh? The new Live Brum site lets you paste their listings onto your site.
I know it’s not exactly live, but maybe they’ll add a film section too…

I’m doing a bit of moonlighting this week, writing press releases for Moseley Folk fest at the end of August. One of their guests on the Sunday afternoon is Ian Campbell, father of Ali and Robin from UB40 and a godfather of Birmingham’s folk scene. Back in the 60s his Jug O’ Punch folk club round the back of Digbeth Civic Hall (now the Barfly) gathered all the big names on the revival circuit - including Paul Simon, who went on to cover Campbell’s ‘The Sun is Burning’. The club helped to spawn the Red Lion folk club in Kings Heath, which is still going strong today and pays host to Peggy Seeger and assorted Watersons this Saturday. Big events like last month’s Town Hall sell-out English Originals and Moseley Folk owe a lot to these smaller pub promoters, who kept the folk circuit ticking over through many years of unfashionability.

Anyway, all of this is obviously a very roundabout way of plugging the final event in our spring season. Also jumping on the folk bandwagon, on Sunday 18 May 7inch will be screening a lovely 1965 film about the Watersons; Travelling For a Living. The director Derrick Knight will be up to introduce the film, and you can read a wee interview we did with him here.

By way of a warm-up act for I For India on Sunday we’ll be showing a small selection from the Living Room Cinema dvd, recently put out by the Center for Home Movies. This is a group of enthusiastic archivists who promote the worldwide Home Movie Day where anyone can show up and share their old cine footage (next one on 18th October 2008). As well as raising awareness of film preservation they have harvested some of the best for this compilation, which kicks off with a rare colour clip of Thomas Edison and includes wobblycam gems from Chicago and New York to Havana and Nagoya. Watching two hours of other people’s home-movies may not be your idea of a dream night in, but it’s strange how moving the mundane can become with time.

“Home movies turn minuses into pluses. Since so many are irretrievably lost, we cherish those that remain and yearn for those that we have not yet found. Of this desire histories are made. And since often we can only infer their context from fleeting visual clues, home movies pique our imagination. Imagining their backstories turns a void into art.”

- archivist Rick Prelinger, from the Living Room Cinema sleeve notes (some lovely home movies can also be downloaded from Prelinger’s collection at archive.org). One of our favourites on the dvd is the Rosenblatt wedding, wonderful shots from 1945 of a group of young deaf people letting rip on the dancefloor with insightful commentary by the newly-wed couple’s son 60 years later.

Just added a brief interview with Sandhya Suri, director of I For India. Here’s a snippet:

“Like most film-makers I am simultaneously excited by and worried about the digital revolution. At the beginning I think I was more worried. Things were less clear, everybody seemed to be picking up a camera and we feared that respect for the craft may also fly out the window. However, as this becomes an ever stronger reality, I am more excited, particularly in terms of distribution and the possibility that it gives us as film-makers; to lead a decent, paid, honest life that others do, cutting out the middlemen who take all our money after years of hard work when the film finally gets distributed (if you are that lucky). So, I am interested in using the ‘digital revolution’ to find my audiences and get to them directly.”

We’ll be showing the film at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath on Sunday 27 April.