Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st May at Hot Bed Press in Salford

We took part in Sights from the Other City this weekend at Hot Bed Press in Salford from 11-5 on Saturday and Sunday. This was our first date in a Printmaker's studio and there were unique results from both of the workshops. Kelvin managed to screenprint onto some film as shown to the side and Jo managed to attend a quick introduction to Letterpress printing.  

Over the two days we were joined by many practicing printmakers and so the results were suitably impressive. It was great to meet so many fascinating people and we were even interviewed by Joe Sparrow about the project which is playable from the link below:

Drawing Sound With Light by A New Band A Day
On the sunday night Kelvin DJed before legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders at Band On the Wall - an amazing end to a brilliant weekend...
                        

Saturday 23rd April at Old Market Gallery in Rotherham

We came to run a workshop at the Old Market Gallery in Chris's home town of Rotherham as part of their pop up weekend exhibition with A Small Cinema. Suffice to say, this was a big deal for Chris who was running this workshop with Mark and Jo, with many old friends and their families coming along to have a go on the film and say hello. There's a few pictures here of some of our younger participants -Charlie (2), Nicole and Amy (both 9 months) - adding their small contributions of handiwork to the vast trail of film we've amassed over the past six months.

It was very exciting to see the investment and enthusiasm put in by Old Market Gallery's curator Peter Martin and all the local volunteers to inject Rotherham with a vibrant and vast contemporary art space in a town centre that has suffered in recent years due to the decampment of it major shops to Meadowhall shopping centre, and 

 earned the controversial patronage of Jamie Oliver. Particularly great was the exhibition detailing  the histories of Rotherham's now defunct cinemas leading to engaging inteviews documented, as always, for our soundtrack that will accompany our final film. 

'Thatcher should be trialled for war crimes against her own people' was a particularly stand out line from the day, in reference to the problems facing South Yorkshire in the 1980's with the loss of the coal and steel industries.

We had a great time and met new and old friends who all offered us their unique perspectives and histories as well as creating a truly great ten minute film. Thanks so much to everyone who came down and made this event a very special day for us.

Peter Martin's film 'The Angry Silence' which was made especially for the Old Market Gallery

 about the old cinemas in Rotherham can be viewed below:

                                 
                                          The Angry Silence from Small Cinema on Vimeo.

Thursday 21st of April at Minicine in Armley Mills Industrial Museum

OKO ran our day in Armley Mills Industrial Museum and Jo guest writes about the day:

Unravel returned to Leeds for a workshop at Armley Mills Industrial Museum, in partnership with Miniciné.  As well as charting Leeds’ industrial past, the museum also has a collection of ciné equipment dating from the turn of the twentieth century onwards. There’s also an exhibit on Louis le Prince, who shot the first ever frames of film on Leeds Bridge in 1888.  And to top that, the museum has the smallest cinema in the north of England – the fixtures and fittings were reclaimed from the former Armley Picture Palace Hall (built in 1912, closed in 1964).

It was great to run this workshop in collaboration with Miniciné, who run a monthly screening at Armley Mills.  Thanks to Edel and Danny, and to all the participants who came along to work on the film.  The workshop film was screened in the “mini” cinema just before the main feature, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.

Next dates Thursday 21st and Saturday 23rd April in Armley and Rotherham

Two great events coming up next week. The first on thursday is at Armley Mills Industrial Museum just out of the city centre in Leeds. Our workshop will be run by Mark and Jo and is in tandem with the first birthday of Minicine, the smallest cinema in the North of England! Our workshop is totally free and open to all, beginning at 5pm and finishing just before the screening of British New Wave classic Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.

The following Saturday is a special event for Chris as Unravel reaches his home-town of Rotherham (although we may yet get to his actual home- village in Maltby yet...) for our date at the Old Market Gallery in tandem with A Small Cinema.
Both dates should be excellent so hope to see as many of you there as possible. See you soon....

Maria's Solo show in Cyprus

If you are lucky enough to live or be in Cyprus over the next three weeks don't miss Maria's solo show at the Apotheke Gallery in Nicosia, Cyprus with her piece 'Here, this time, a terrible beauty'. The show runs from tomorrow, the 7th April until the 24th.

here, this time, a terrible beauty from Maria Anastassiou on Vimeo.

PS
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Friday 1st April at SHUNT in London

On the 1st of April we ran our first stint in a nightclub at Shunt in London. Shunt have been going for over ten years and have built up a reputation as one of London's best spaces for late night art events in the capital. After several near escapes Shunt finally shut it's doors for its London Bridge venue in summer 2010 but continued in a temporary space used for its own theatrical production, Money, on Bermondsey street. Our night there was within the last few events held in the space and it was a total pleasure to work with a crew of great people in such a unique and inspiring space. As you can see from the photographs we created interactive live film loops throughout the night that punters were invited to manipulate as the various acts of bands, comedy, drag acts, dancers and other artists contributed to the buzz of the evening throughout the night. We were offered unlimited sangria and lots of support, particularly from Laonikus, one of the students from the Guidhall school of music, who attended the warm up workshop held during Chris's residency in Iceland in September. It was great to create suge huge projections within the vast space and it proved to be a very unique event, including the screening of the film at 1am with optional dancing provided by the crowd! Thanks Shunt - we hope that your next incarnation comes about sooner rather than later!

Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th March at the Midlands Arts Centre for Flatpack Festival

Photos from our very busy and very awesome weekend at the MAC space in Birmingham for the excellent Flatpack Festival. Text to follow...

Friday 25th March at Brighton University

Our day working with the Performance and Visual Arts students at Brighton University. Text to follow.

Closing event at 157 Robert Street, Thursday 24th March

Bournemouth University on Monday 21st March

On Monday 21st of March we took a break from our space in Camdent to work with BA Students at the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University. Neither Chris or Maria had been to Bournemouth and were rather taken with it's natural beauty and award winning beach. The students were all sophisticated technical animators but for many, this was their first time at creating animation without the use of a computer let alone a camera! We were invited to come by the brilliant and lovely Paula Callus who we met in November way up in Edinburgh at the Filmhouse for the Africa in Motion Festival. Paula and all her colleagues made us feel incredibly welcome and the results from the day were, inevitably, some of our most accomplished results. Although we were a little perplexed by the amount of animated gentitalia included in the twenty minutes of film made that day we were suitable impressed by the sophisticated use of frame by frame techniques!!! Cheers Bournemouth!

Screening event in Robert Street, Saturday 19th march

On Saturday, 19th March, our second major screening event at 157 Robert Street took place. This night showcased a specially created sculptural piece by Karolina Racyznski in the basement of the shop using up most of the space downstairs to create a 16mm loop installation.

We were also delighted to showcase the Oral Histories project by Faridha Karim with the locally based Surma : The Bengali Workers Association, a collection of interviews archiving the personal histories of the vibrant Bengali community based in Camden town. Transcripts of three interviews with such residents were displayed in English with the sound available through headphones.

The evening opened with a spontaneous collaboration between film maker Claire Thomas and her Cellist brother, Richard improvising to her hand painted film, made just days before the screening. Our full programme included Maria's Here this time, a terrible beauty, Chris's The World Moved as well as a sneak preview of Kelvin's Unravel sound edit from the Manchester date at AND Festival. We were also extremely pleased to screen Knitting a Frame by Chris and Maria's old tutor from the RCA, Jennifer Nightingale and then, after the suggestion of our very first locally based participant episodes from The Open Road by Claude Friese Greene. This was one of our most remarkable consequences in the full residency at Robert Street as none of us knew of the film's existence prior to Gerry, the local resident, coming in to the shop after passing by and informing us of his friend's  deceased husband's grand father (!) being Claude Friese Greene, a director who, in 1927, filmed a documentary detailing a trip between Land's End to John O'Groats which he then manipulated by hand to turn the black and white film into colour. Below is an on-line clip of this remarkable film, re-restored by the BFI...