A man revisits his childhood beach to surf with his son. Humiliated by locals, he becomes entangled in an escalating conflict that pushes him to his limits.
As always, this year’s shorts competition is full of brilliant films from all over the world. But we’ve got a real soft spot for the abundance of incredible talent right here in the Midlands. Expect high-quality drama, animation, documentary and experimental films all made by homegrown filmmakers. Films: Dr XYZ: A Medical Drag Transthology (El Jones, UK, 2024 14 mins) Extra Cleaning (J...
Mirror Images: A Conversation On Personal Filmmaking
Tue 13 May
There are a few feature documentaries in the festival programme this year where filmmakers point the camera at their own family, as well as themselves (e.g. Motherboard and Silent Men). In Mirror Images we delve into this phenomenon a little further. Through support from Doc Society, this panel discussion with directors Duncan Cowles and Victoria Mapplebeck will explore the ethical consideratio...
Curated by Misha Zakharov The guest-curated project Carceral Cinema (2025–26) aims to spark conversations about carcerality, representations of prisons, and race and gender in the context of incarceration through the lens of film. The first Carceral Cinema screening will take place at Flatpack 2025, showcasing accounts of women in North American prisons, created by iconic social justice film...
Victoria Mapplebeck's intimate portrait of single parenthood via home video footage immediately draws you into her family's world. Spanning 20 years, we witness Mapplebeck navigate the highs and lows of motherhood, while her son, Jim, grapples with growing up without his father. Life-altering events, like a cancer diagnosis and the loss of Victoria's father, unfold alongside small, everyday mom...
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their Mississippi hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Flatpack alum Duncan Cowles turns his sharp eye to men’s mental health in Silent Men, his feature debut. After admitting that he himself struggles to open up, especially to those he loves most, Cowles goes on a road trip to uncover why men find it so difficult to express their feelings. Full of the dry humour we know and love in his short films, Silent Men is a lesson in vulnerability, a que...
Alt rock icons Pavement get the tongue-in-cheek tribute they deserve from Alex Ross Perry, who describes this as ‘not a Pavement documentary, but a Pavement movie.’ There’s definitely the thread of a classic rise-and-fall-and-return music doc in here, but it’s woven together with the opening of a new museum devoted to the band, rehearsals for Slanted! Enchanted! – a jukebox musical built from S...
Ghassan Salhab’s debut feature Phantom Beirut (Ashbah Beyrouth) is steeped in ghosts - both literal and metaphorical. Set in the late 1980s - whilst Lebanon’s Civil War limps to a close - it follows Khalil, a man who faked his own death ten years earlier. Now returning to Beirut under a new identity he’s forced to confront the people, and past, he abandoned. Blurring the lines between fictio...
We’re delighted to welcome James Lawrence Slattery and Sean Burns to Flatpack for an evening of clips and conversation to mark Routledge’s publication of Taking Back Desire: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Queerness and Neoliberalism on Screen. Drawing on Slattery’s PhD thesis, the book examines a range of film, television and video art texts including Paris Is Burning, Pose, Sharp Objects, 120 BP...
BFI NETWORK and Film Hub Midlands are back for Midlands Short Film Club - another chance to celebrate the exciting things happening right here in the Midlands - proving you don’t need Hollywood to make a great film. The team will be previewing films created through BFI NETWORK Short Film Funding over the last two years, as well as being joined by a panel of filmmakers to talk about the importan...
Some films stick with you. The first time you saw The Exorcist at a sleepover. The moment Jaws made you swear off stepping foot in the ocean again. For a whole generation, IT (1990) was that film, the one that burrowed deep into their subconscious, and never really left. Time to relive the nightmare on the big screen. Over two nights, we’re bringing Stephen King’s IT: Part 1 and 2 to the Moc...
Two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.
The Extraordinary Miss Flower brings to life the remarkable story of Geraldine Flower and the discovery of a suitcase full of passionate, heartfelt letters of love sent to her in the 60s and 70s that inspired acclaimed Icelandic singer/songwriter Emilíana Torrini to return to the studio and record an entire album of new songs.
Following a top-prize win at Sundance, Wendell Harris’ 1989 masterpiece has gone woefully underseen - until now. Harris gives a Shakespearean performance relaying the (somehow) true life story of Doug Street, the con-artist who in his time impersonated a lawyer, a student at Yale, an American football player, and even a surgeon. With some truly unbelievable turns (thirty-six hysterectomies),...
Some films stick with you. The first time you saw The Exorcist at a sleepover. The moment Jaws made you swear off stepping foot in the ocean again. For a whole generation, IT (1990) was that film, the one that burrowed deep into their subconscious, and never really left. Time to relive the nightmare on the big screen. Over two nights, we’re bringing Stephen King’s IT: Part 1 and 2 to the Moc...
Ready for a wild ride through the windswept moors of 1790s Britain? Buckle up for Tornado, a pulse-pounding, genre-smashing revenge thriller like no other. Meet Tornado (Kōki), a fierce, determined young woman traveling with her father’s puppet Samurai show. When they run into a ruthless gang led by the menacing Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), things take a...
What do you do if you’re a Hungarian teenager living just after the fall of the Iron Curtain? Start forging train tickets and travel all across Europe, of course. Based on real accounts, Pelikan Blue follows three friends (who met while committing bank fraud), as they develop the techniques and tactics needed to build their forgery empire, meet girls, and get into trouble. Packing a lot into...
A Free Mystery Movie Every Friday Night*, no clues, but it will probabley be a banger. Come join the club. If you can buy a beer or some sweets that would really help us out. *Most Fridays, just a 95p booking fee per ticket
A mysterious portal pulls four misfits into the Overworld, a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they'll have to master the terrain while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected crafter named Steve.
