7 inch Cinema (Birmingham)

Address: Unit 118 Scott House / The Custard Factory / Gibb St, Birmingham, B9 4AA, UK / United Kingdom
Email: pip (at) 7inch.org.uk
Contact : Pip McKnight
https://7inch.org/

7 Inch Cinema is a mobile exhibition outfit with the capacity to set up screenings in non-traditional venues. These have included bars, railway arches, warehouses and even medieval barns.

Tech: DVD/ DV/ Digibeta/ 16mm/ 8 mm.

History: 7 Inch Cinema started out as a pub film night after a chance inheritance of a-v equipment from the now defunct Birmingham Film and TV festival. Our activity quickly grew to include touring programmes, film history and archive projects, music festival film spaces, guest programming and screenings in all manner of buildings. In 2003, this activity took the next logical step in establishing a film festival that utilised non-traditional screening spaces, including Birmingham’s wealth of ex-industrial buildings, in the absence of independent cinemas and events venues. Now 7 Inch Cinema’s major project, Flatpack Festival has gained a reputation for its innovative approach to both programming and to the experience of watching film. While our ambition was (and still is) to eventually settle into our own permanent space, we found this nomadic approach offers a certain amount of freedom to take risks with challenging programmes of work- something that may be harder to do with the introduction of rents and overheads.

Organisational status: 7 Inch Cinema is managed by its two directors, currently a Sole Trader business. Flatpack Festival is a company limited by guarantee and is governed by a board of directors.

Editorial Line: Short film, animation, artist film and video, installations, live scores, expanded cinema and independent/experimental feature length films.

Regularity: 7 Inch Cinema averages one or two p/month. Flatpack Festival consists of 50-60 screenings and events over 5 days.

Other stuff: Live music.

Publicity: Word of mouth, printed material, media partnerships, strong web presence including blog and decent website, monthly mailouts that features other interesting film activity, co-promotion with similar film or music outfits, targeted marketing to special interest groups.

Audience: Average of 70% capacity approximately. Our core audience is 19-35 with an interest in art, film and music though we reach all sorts of people, particularly through our childrens and archive events. The best test of our success is if we are reaching beyond our core audience- providing a way in to more challenging work for non-arts crowd.

Funding: 7 Inch Cinema is a mixture of self generated funding for bigger projects and our services being bought in by festivals, art galleries and local authorities for one-off events. Flatpack Festival is funded through a mixture of public funding, private sponsorship and local authority support.

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