go to flatpack

one of the most extraordinary film festivals in Britain starts this week, right on our doorstep, and I'd encourage as many people as possible to go to it. Flatpack Festival starts with Curzonora at Birmingham's Town Hall on Wednesday, and then explodes all over Birmingham's Eastside until Sunday. Organised by the good folk of 7 inch cinema, Flatpack offers

a head-scratchingly good lineup which roams the wild frontiers of cinema and takes in animation, music films, live scores, shorts, archive treasures, street art, flipbooks, independent movies, latenight horror, installations, talks, shindigs, and so forth along the way

Some of it is pretty hard to define. All of it is fab! Highlights for me include David O'Reilly's Please say something, Let the right one in from Sweden, and Tokyo!, three films directed in turn by Michael Gondry, Leo Carax and Joon-Ho Bong. Flatpack's installation trail launched on Thursday, captured on film here. Unfortunately I will be missing it all because I am here for the next two weeks on this.

Lichfield Festival will be working with 7 inch to bring their Travelling Picture Show to Lichfield this summer, offering families the opportunity to see new and rarely screened short films. 8 lucky youngsters will also have the chance to take part in animation workshops leading directly to the creation of a new film created by young animators from all around the West Midlands.

Lichfield Festival has been screening film in Lichfield since 1990, and the Travelling Picture Show hopefully suggests a change in how we screen film. Admittedly this change started with Charlie Chaplin silent shorts in 2006, and is part of an ongoing plan to bring this artform into line with everything else we do. Who knows what the future might hold - films in car parks, free outdoor screenings and weird and wonderful films popping up in unexpected corners all over Lichfield - anything is possible. However, mainly due to the diversification of TV, the proliferation of DVDs and the vastness of the internet, screening films as we have done in the past will sadly stop.

I would love to start a film festival here. The idea of a film festival in a city without a cinema was just too good to be true. So bravo to the Garrick Theatre who are starting the Inspire Film Festival in Lichfield on 3 July which promises to feature:

entries from up and coming filmmakers from across the country and culminating in the presentation of awards in numerous categories to the producers/directors of the best submissions