Thanks to all who partook in the recent Town Called Panic giveaway. DVDs of Panic and the Hammer and Tongs Collection are winging their way to the following lucky people…

Joely Broad, Winterley
Hana Wright, Sunderland
Immogen, Bromsgrove
Giuseppa Barresi, Solihull
Elizabeth Billinger, Daventry

The answer was The Pic Pic Andre Shoow.

Next week sees the DVD release of A Town Called Panic (aka Panique au Village), the demented Belgian toy animation which we screened at Green Man Festival earlier this year. This touching tale of Cowboy, Indian, Horse and 50 million bricks is being promoted by UK outfit Hammer and Tongs (Son of Rambow), who also happen to have their own DVD coming out – a collection of their inventive shorts and music videos for the likes of Pulp, Vampire Weekend and Supergrass.

Both are eminently ownable, and if you want a copy of each for £0.00 just write back to info [at] 7inch.org.uk with PANIC in the header and the answer to this question…

Q) The directors of Town Called Panic first made their name with a TV cartoon in the late 90s. What was it called?

Five winners will be revealed at the end of November. (Yes, we realise that Google has made this form of quiz pretty much redundant. But what the heck.)

**Update** Last chance to enter – we’ll be fishing five out of the hat on Monday 22nd Nov.

More doormat joy last week, with the arrival of Flicker Alley’s five-disc box-set Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema. As you may well know, this magician-turned filmmaker blazed a trail in the art of fantasy and science fiction cinema while others were happy filming parades and folks leaving factories. It’s been very difficult to get hold of any of his work in a decent condition for home viewing but now, thanks to Flicker Alley, we have thirteen hours of the stuff. 173 films, including the likes of Trip to the Moon, Impossible Voyage and The Man With the Rubber Head. As you’d expect there is a fair bit of repetition on there, but this is a wonderful thing to dip into and also includes a halfhour biopic by Georges Franju (made slightly creepy by the fact that Méliès’ widow plays herself while he is played by his son) and a tribute written by Norman McLaren.

Tipoff on this came from the terrific early cinema blog The Bioscope, responsible for a number of additions to our Christmas wishlist including an Emile Cohl dvd and a book called The Haunted Gallery.

It’s always good to start the day with a pleasant surprise through the letterbox, and a dvd of ‘The People and the Whale’ is just what our Friday needed. It’s a short animation by Stockholm-based Peter Larsson, whose earlier film ‘The Man Who Got Nowhere’ we showed at Flatpack 2. Once again Larsson has peopled his work with grotesque clay folk who show a tendency towards mob mentality and incoherent shouting, showing how a beached whale becomes a beacon for the local community. The cathartic explosion at the end reminded us of a real-life incident in Florence, Oregon…

More info on Larsson’s films and nifty collages can be found at hockey-rawk.com. We’ll definitely show it at the next festival, but if you can’t wait until March Peter is selling DVD copies on the site.

Just following up from the dvd launch; anyone who wants to pick up ‘Shadow Shows of the Phantascope’ can do so at the new Pram Shop.

Ps: Pram are doing a couple of gigs in Canada this month – readers in Montreal or Toronto are advised to go and track them down. [myspace]