Animation Forum WM have teamed up with Dice Productions and Flip Festival to bring three separate programmes of screenings of the best UK animated films of 2010 and 2011 to Birmingham. The shorts will be screened on Thursday 9th, Friday 10th, and Saturday 11th February from 7pm each night at The Custard Factory Theatre and you can vote to help determine the Public Choice winners.

Buy tickets and get more information on the Animation Forum WM website.

If you want to dance your way into 2012, there are plenty of clubs offering NYE nights. Gatecrasher have got 2manydjs, Eric Prydz, AN21 and Max Vangelli, Bigger Than Barry are at The Old Crown, Eclectricity at the HMV Institute with Chase & Status and Annie Mac, Hott Date are doing a thing at Hennesseys and Glas will meet Face at The Rainbow. Everywhere else has got a thing going on though.

If you’d rather keep things slightly more pub-based, then Island Bar and The Victoria are getting together for a joint celebration. Sam Redmore and This is TMRW are looking after the Hare and Hounds and there’s a ‘live fast and die young’ fancy-dress night at The Fighting Cocks in Moseley. Your local will probably be open too.

Not to be outdone, Birmingham City Council are putting on “low level pyrotechnics” in Victoria Square while the Big Screen will show the BBC One New Year Celebrations between 10pm and 12.30am.

Music is covered too, with The Subterraneans at The Jam House, The Father Teds at The Irish Centre, Soul Survivors at Sutton Town Hall, and Symphony Hall’s New Year’s Eve Gala.

And finally if you need a laugh after this long year, there’s comedy at The Glee Club, Highlight and Jongleurs.

The film was commissioned by THSH, with the support of the DMC McDonald Foundation, and was created by animator Chris Randall at Second Home Studios to a poem by Symphony Hall’s poet-in-residence Julie Boden.

The Mechanical Musical Marvel is currently being shown on Birmingham’s BBC Big Screen in Victoria Square, and has already been selected for the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival which runs 21 – 30 October.

OxjamBrum’s next charity event is The Takeover 2011 on Saturday 15th October that puts bands in several city-centre venues throughout the day. I went to last year’s Takeover and it was excellent, so I recommend you check it out. Advance tickets are still available.

You can see more of Lee’s work on his flickr account or by visiting his website. Thanks go to the FAKE magazine blog where we noticed this.

Meanwhile, FAKE magaine‘s crowdfunding campaign to produce its second issue has just been extended until 13 October. You can donate to help them get it made on their Crowdfunder campaign page.

Here’s photographer Jonathan Cherry on his recent trip to Rohini, India:

I was in India for only two weeks & the majority of that time was spent in the 30-year-old sub city of Delhi called Rohini. It was a fascinating place to stay & apart from feeling a little out of place Rohini offers a beautiful sense of community. I was drawn into photographing the people of Rohini because of their openness. One wet and humid afternoon I walked to the nearest park where I watched some local boys play cricket. Within 5 minutes of being sat on a bench I was surrounded by 20 boys wanting to know where I had come from and what my name was. It was an interesting scenario because after these two questions we sat in silence for many minutes simply looking at each other. Experiencing their intrigue from my point of view was something I decided to use within my photography. By pointing my Hasselblad at people I no longer became the focus but my subject was drawn into the spotlight. It was an interesting dynamic and I plan to explore it further.

There are more photographs from Jonathan’s visit to Rohini on his website.

Tony Graffiti presents Keep Graffiti Real, Smoke Crack, Sign On… a graffiti exhibition at Green Street Arts. The exhibition launches on 14 October and will run through to 23 October.

Digbeth is Good says there’ll be…

…a house band, DJ Boogie Dave, Drop Beats Not Bombs along side DJ Rosko, as well as Emjay Ladie, DJ Punk N Ska with Justin Bond from Boogie Down Brum playing early rave and britpop.

…and I’m inclined to believe them.

And the creativity hasn’t been restricted to the classic etch-a-sketch picture, as artists have been actively encouraged to paint and take apart their red framed tablets to create something new.

All of the artworks will be displayed in a public exhibition between 1-16 October and the deadline for submissions is 5pm, 27 September 2011, so there’s still time to get etching. For details on how to get involved, contact learning@macarts.co.uk.

The venue – which hosted the shoot for Juice Aleem’s Rock My Hologram music video and more – made this announcement on their Facebook page:

It’s with a great deal of sadness that we have to announce BOXXED ceased trading on Monday the 19th Sept 2011. We’ve had fun and we hope everyone that experienced our unique space did too, but it’s time for us to bow out.

Massive thanks go to everyone that was part of our project, particularly Dave Checkley, Ksmk Neil, all the graff guys that painted our walls just for the love of it (especially Hoaks & Fluid), The Project Pigeon Crew and everyone that volunteered their time to help us out. You know who you are.

According to Digbeth is Good (hat-tip for posting about this originally), Project Pigeon, which is based on Boxxed’s Custard Factory grounds, will be unaffected for now and there will be a couple of closing parties at the venue to see it off in style. Inquiries should be directed to the Boxxed team on 07826 523 650.

Here’s how it works:

Participants in the treasure trail will be given a set of starting co-ordinates to find using a mobile internet service or sat nav for a location with historic significance in Birmingham City Centre.  When they go to the spot, they will find a costumed character with a historic link to the venue who will give them the location of the second clue and so on, until they have found four different re-enactors, each representing different periods of English history.

If you’re following the trail to find the fourth re-enactor, you’ll be entered into draws throughout the day to win family tickets to the Festival of History, which will feature re-enactments and things like a replica World War I trench, a medieval joust, and a Victorian travelling show.

The trail will be open for one day only, this Saturday 9th July, and the starting co-ordinates for the trail are 52.479433, -1.906933.