Flatpack has gone from a simple film night at the Rainbow pub to a city-spanning film festival that’s shown over 3,000 films to over 100,000 people in the span of 20 years. This spring (May 8 to 16), expect premieres spanning cinema, music and audio-visual art, with Birmingham stories often at the heart of it.
A vital fixture in Birmingham’s cultural calendar, there is everything from screenings and performances to walks and installations. The festival programme also boasts a mind-boggling range of international talent with an “emphasis on the playful, surprising and indefinable.”
What’s at Flatpack Festival this year?
One of the biggest, if not the biggest, standouts of Flatpack this year is the screening of ‘Spirit of the Tramp’, Carmen Chaplin’s documentary that reveals how silent film legend Charlie Chaplin was a Roma boy born in Black Patch Park, Smethwick. Carmen Chaplin will even be attending the gala screening.
A major strand of the festival is that it celebrates Midlands homegrown talent. Victoria Wood is also honoured with a special screening at Midlands Arts Centre, alongside a comedy bus tour led by Rachel Baker and Barbara Nice (Janice Connolly), visiting sites from Wood’s career, including The Sportsman Pub.
Elsewhere, German-Brummie artist Michael Wolters stages ‘Fairlight’, an electropop musical about the invention of tennis, at The Archery in Edgbaston, the world’s oldest tennis club. Up the road, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, star Paul McGann will attend a screening of ‘Withnail and I’.
Local stories continue with the late photographer Martin Parr’s Black Country documentaries ‘Teddy Gray’s Sweet Factory’ and ‘Turkey and Tinsel’; a world premiere of local filmmaker Kyle Green’s short on Dudley Road Hospital; and a rare screening of ‘Curriculee Curricula’ filmed at the University of Birmingham in 1978.
You will also find a 40th Anniversary screening of Black Audio Film Collective’s ‘Handsworth Songs’; Mos Hannan and Usayd Younis’ ‘After Eight’ explores systemic racism and the miscarriage of justice suffered by Birmingham local Satpal Ram; and at the festival’s Digbeth hub, artist Michael D Kennedy will create work live, on a quest to uncover a mythical subterranean cinema.
How do I get a ticket?
Tickets for the 20th Flatpack Festival go on sale on Monday, March 30. To learn about the whole 2026 programme and purchase your tickets, you can head here.