what: eye-popping alternative, underground film festival
when: May 21-31
why: “I’m hoping that the festival will serve to open up people’s eyes beyond the usual multiplex and popcorn fare,’ Dan Paolantonio the chugging carbon-neutral engine behind the Flipside Film Festival told D+CFilm.
where: Plymouth Arts Centre Cinema; Plymouth College of Art & Design Cinema; PCAD Viewpoint Gallery; The Shed Flatpack Cinema; The Voodoo Lounge Bar; Bar Favela
how: to book tickets for screenings & events at Plymouth Arts Centre call 01752 206114.
For all other screenings & special events, tickets will be available on the day, at the door of the relevant venue.
Email flipside-festival@blueyonder.co.uk to check availability or to reserve tickets.
1. Don Letts at Flipside
2. categories
3. what the heck is Flipside?
4. a few words
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Don Letts at Flipside
The final day of Plymouth’s Flipside film festival (May 21-31) will be devoted to the work of legendary filmmaker, DJ, author and cultural alchemist Don Letts.
The afternoon will feature screenings of two of Don’s feature films at the Plymouth Arts Centre. Groundbreaking drama Dancehall Queen will be followed by his Grammy-winning documentary Westway To The World.
There will also be a panel discussion of Don’s work and plenty of opportunity to pose your questions to the man himself. Don will also be giving readings from his bestselling autobiography Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers.
An inspiring and fascinating fella, Letts came to notoriety in the late Seventies as the DJ who single handedly turned a whole generation of punks onto reggae.
He adopted the punk DIY ethic to make his first film, The Punk Rock Movie, which was (and is) the only documentary on the UK punk scene, featuring the Sex Pistols, The Clash and loads of others.
He currently presents a weekly radio show on 6 Music and still DJs nationally and internationally.
Tickets for the afternoon shenanigans cost £6 / £4.50 NUS & Unwaged.
The evening event is Flipside’s closing party at Bar Favela on Mayflower Street in Plymouth (yknow, where Good Companions used to be).
Don Letts will headline a DJ set, with support from DJs Crusty and Dirty Arry.
Tickets for the closing party cost £5, or £4 with a ticket stub from the afternoon event.
Ten per cent of the proceeds from the closing party will be donated to the Bristol Computers for Palestine charity.
Check out D+CFilm over the next few days to find out about some of the other filmmakers involved in the Flipside festival.
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categories
Entries can be of any genre or filmmaking style, although should explore one or more of the following thematic areas:
The View From Here: Films which provide the audience with the opportunity to ’see’ our world from different and unfamiliar visual perspectives, achieved by manipulating ‘the real’ with various cinematic techniques and technological trickery.
View Point: Films which celebrate non-mainstream / non-traditional and minority viewpoints and experiences of our world – especially political / spiritual / ideological viewpoints and experiences that are under-represented by mainstream broadcast media.
4:3 ReView: Films which creatively embrace ‘endangered’ media practices, processes and technologies, featuring everything in the 4:3 aspect ratio, from Super8, Standard 8, & Standard 16mm film, to analogue & pixelvision ‘toy’ video.
Entries can be accepted in VHS / miniDV / DVCAM / HDV / DVD-video (Region 2 or Region 0) / standard 8mm / super8 / standard 16mm / super16.
Other media formats can be accommodated by an, ahem, ’special arrangement’. Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Etc etc.
The deadline for entries is May 14 so you’d better head over to the Flipside website immediately to download an application pack.
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what the heck is Flipside?
Well, the event is the brainbaby of Dan Paolantonio, film lecturer at Plymouth College of Art and Design and D+CFree chairman at the Two Short Nights festival (we sponsored that one, too) back in December.
Running from May 21-31, Flipside will showcase both feature-length and short movies, exploring alternate, unorthodox and under-represented views of our world.
In addition to programmed screenings there will also be a whole buncha film workshops, Q&A sessions and special events.
Needless to say, being right-on and strictly non-hierarchical, the festival will also give emerging filmmakers the chance to show their work alongside the more established names.
Indeed, the emphasis is very much on furthering cinematic debate and celebrating diversity of experience in film – which is why D+CFilm was so bloody keen to throw it’s weight behind the event.
Stay tuned over the next few days to find out which filmmakers will be appearing at the festival, how you (YOU!) can get involved and why Flipside will have a cinema in a shed.
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a few words
“Plymouth doesn’t have a themed film festival as such, and although I do love what Motion Plymouth are doing and have achieved with their festival, I did feel as though there was room for one which had a more independent vibe.
“I hope that it will act as a platform for the sharing of views and experiences of our world which are under-represented by mainstream media; exploring the creative possibilities of ‘endangered’ media technologies and practices and films which allow the viewer to experience our world from different and unfamiliar visual perspectives.
“I hope that it will be distinctly cinematic and free of the usual trappings and bluster of more mainstream events. We’re the flipside to all that!
“The Open Call response has been great and truly global, reflecting the festival’s international flavour, with notable entries from Japan, Chile, Canada, Ireland, Japan, US, Spain and even ‘ol blighty! We’re still keen for more entries – they should respond to one or more of the Open Call themes, detailed on the site. The closing date May 14.”