Birmingham’s love of threatened species and the soon-to-be-demolished has manifested itself again in a flurry of Central Library activity. Last night VIVID in Digbeth unveiled a new multi-screen video installation by Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, filmed in the guts of the building on empty Sunday afternoons. It’s called Inbindable Volume, and runs until 21 August.

A group have also formed around the notion Project Brutal, aiming to celebrate the library ‘before it’s too late’, and this week Lucy McLauchlan has been painting a bird mural on the side of the building.

[via BiNS]

This might also be a good time to revisit the documentary about the man who designed the thing, John Madin, back when he had the world in the palm of his hand. This film helped inspire the writing of Catherine O’Flynn’s new book The News Where You Are, featuring an architect whose legacy gets demolished. And finally, when/if they do start knocking it down perhaps someone would like to film a sequel to this:

Birmingham timelapse from 7inch cinema on Vimeo.

PS: In anticipation of the big clear-out, there are some good film-books going cheap on the fourth floor at the moment.

Trailer for a new documentary about composer Raymond Scott by his son, Stan Warnow. Sensoria Festival in Sheffield are premiering the film next Tuesday, with Warnow talking to Martyn Ware (Heaven 17) afterwards.

Thanks to having our heads in a festival-planning hole, other Birmingham film-related stuff has passed us by over the last few weeks. Here’s a brief post to help rectify that…

FILM DASH
Thursday 11 March at the Electric
The second edition of this 48 hour film challenge just wrapped up, and the results will be on show at the Electric tonight from 7pm.

WM FILMMAKERS FOR HAITI
Saturday 13 March at the Edge, Cheapside in Digbeth
Fundraiser featuring shorts, promos and DJs.

FILM RATS
Thursday 18 March at the Sunflower Lounge
Regular evening of films and performance, now transplanted from Selly Oak to a new venue in town.

Submissions are also still open for the Shorts on Walls event at Flatpack – get your animations to AFWM by 18th March.

Birmingham timelapse from 7inch cinema on Vimeo.

This is a selection of images taken by amateur photographer Derek Fairbrother from the same spot in Birmingham’s Chamberlain square between 1963 and 1986. We’ve just compiled them for a new exhibition called Birmingham Seen which opens at BM&AG this weekend; other sequences include the Post Office tower and the Rotunda. With thanks to Pete James and Gaynor Fairbrother.

You might remember Danish troupe Efterklang from a joyous set at Supersonic last year. They’re returning to Birmingham next week, to play at new venue Asylum in Hockley. It’s just over the road from where Bonds used to be (home of Moneypenny’s, Boogie Down Brum and most importantly Oscillate) in an oft-ignored corner of Birmingham (by me anyway) which seems to livening up with student influx and pubs like the Lord Clifden.

Efterklang – Cutting Ice To Snow from Rumraket on Vimeo.

(The promo for Illuminant is great too)

Also coming up in Birmingham, one of the founders of Paris film collective Light Cone will be presenting a selection of work at Vivid on Saturday. And much further away, the Full of Noise festival in Barrow-in-Furness looks worth a visit.

A mountain of knitted mice, created by Joyce Hall. We’ve been steadily handing these out as we trundle around on the Travelling Picture Show, and will be distributing the last few this month. Beyond the jump is a list of the remaining tour dates, and a copy of this month’s copious listings mailout. If you want to receive these things on a regular basis fill out the box on the left.
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A little aching and fuzzy-headed today after a lovely few days in the Usk valley for Green Man festival. For the first time in three years we got a consistent view of the mountains around us, and barely a drop of drizzle until Monday morning. Our filmtent stuff went really well on the whole; very lively kids matinees, an attentive crowd for The Moon and the Sledgehammer, nice shambolic Sugarfoot boogying and a queue right across the field for British Sea Power, who did not disappoint. So exciting to be sat in a tent rammed with people watching a beautiful old movie with a great live band. A word also for Paul Shallcross, who accompanied silent comedy on Sunday morning and went down a treat. I had forgotten how brutal and hilarious Laurel and Hardy were in their pre-talkie days, and if hordes of children went on a destructive rampage that day it was probably our fault.

Of course we weren’t the only attraction of the weekend. Some of our highlights included -
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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.

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.

Ok, so a few things have been sneaking up on here that we should draw your attention to…

TRAVELLING PICTURE SHOW
Project page for this summer’s kids tour, following a storming weekend of matinees at the Electric. Dates already booked in Bromsgrove, Brum, Pershore, Shrewsbury, and plenty more to come;

WORCESTERSHIRE ON FILM mk2
Worcester and Bretforton, lock up your granddaughters. Actually, don’t;

MAKING DO
Walsall knees-up on 7th May in tandem with Capsule and featuring Pram, July Skies, and the Winter League. And most imminently;

7INCH no.36
Back to the Hare and Hounds, with a crate of good short stuff and guest DJ Jonny Costello. Includes Jeff Keen’s cut-up comic-book overload MARVO MOVIE (pictured above, from the ace new BFI dvd set), a taster for Jo Hamilton’s tour diary GOWN (ditto, and vimeo’d here) and Lucy McLauchlan’s timelapse mural in TACIT (embedded below). Beyond the jump I’ve pasted this morning’s emailout – to receive these as nature intended, sign up on the left.

Beat13 / Lucy McLauchlan “Tacit” from Beat13 on Vimeo.

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