Submissions are now open for Flatpack 8 and this year a new category has been added – the medium length film (defined as between 20 – 40 minutes). Alongside this category, the films under 20 minutes category is also now open. The best film from each category will be awarded £1000 and will feature in the programme for Flatpack 8. More information about submitting your work is available on the site.

The deadline for submissions is 6pm on Friday 29th November 2013. For those not interested in submissions, look out for the programme schedule which will be announced in February 2014. Make sure to follow Flatpack on twitter for updates!

• The Birmingham Central Library demolition had the official go ahead yesterday, doesn’t come a surprise – but disappointing nonetheless for fans of the brute. BBC news via keeptheziggurat
• Once upon a time there was Birmingham: It’s Not Shit. Paradise Circus: A Birmingham Miscellany
• LynTyler, Love is a corset exhibition at Urban Coffee Company
• Competition to design Birmingham pavilion
• Turning Point West Midlands Free Business Development sessions for artists
• Small Change Fund and how to apply Barrow Cadbury Trust
• Walsall Fashion Week is a charity fundraiser taking place in January, organised by students at Walsall College and a staff member of the Students Union.

A few things Flatpack:

• Some photos of Flatpack’s Silent Night event last Friday, taken by @jassansi
• First Light have partnered with Flatpack Festival and Creative Skillset to offer a 4 day residential course that will provide participants with a thorough understanding of the changing film finance landscape
• Flatpack launched a kickstarter to fund their festival hub ‘palais’ for next year (we wrote a little something about Flatpack’s Kickstarter this morning)

Do you like to push your writing to the extreme? Well next Saturday at Grand Union you will have the chance to push your pen wielding fingers to their very extreme with a 12 hour, all night writing extravaganza.

‘Part 12-hour exam, part club night, part endurance writing event’, the organisers BAZ and Hooky Street Press welcome all those who cross the path of the location to take part and give their unique responses to the proposed subjects. A little more info:

The large exhibition space at the heart of Digbeth, has provided the perfect setting for large-scale work, video and events over the past few years. It’s hosted work by internationally recognised artists, including Andy Warhol, Damián Ortega, Józef Robakowski and Siobhan Davies Dance.

Rites of Spring, a three day music festival featuring Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, Modified Toy Orchestra and Epic45 will be the last event held at Ikon Eastside, from 7 – 9 April.

We are extremely saddened to be losing Ikon Eastside, but our commitment to bringing internationally recognised art to the city is unwavering. Looking to the future, our goal remains to create a permanent museum of contemporary art for Birmingham.

– Jonathan Watkins, Ikon Director

It’s not all sad news though, since Ikon are intending to keep up their involvement with the Eastside district, focusing instead on site-specific events and promoting cultural regeneration through their membership of the Eastside Contemporary Art Consortium. Their current study into the feasibility of this permanent museum, (‘Ikon Two’) also remains unaffected.

They have, however awarded Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council an award of up to £3m to allow them to develop a revised plans and to bring the building fully into public use. The Arts Council’s intention is that the significant investment made by all the funders will benefit the residents of Sandwell.

Sir Christopher Frayling, Chair of Arts Council England, said:

“We are the national development agency for the arts, and investing in ground breaking creative projects that have the potential to give more people access to great art is central to what we do. That is why we supported this project and why, at every stage, we have worked with our partners and carefully weighed the level of risk involved against the potential public benefit.

But the fact is that, although the building is open, the interactive art gallery at the centre of the vision for The Public is not. We have done everything we can but there comes a point where we have to make a difficult judgement – and regretfully, that moment is now.”

The Public will be releasing a statement later on today.

• Creative Birmingham – pulling together key public agencies investing in the creative industries
• Design Space – accommodates and finances new design agencies in the Jewellery Quarter
• SRB6 Creative Industries – offers a range of business support to new businesses in the north-west of the city
• Enterprise City – provides coaching and mentoring services to new and expanding businesses
• Business Support for Creative Industries Programme – £9m flagship initiative.  Created 800 jobs, safeguarded 400 jobs, helped start 250 businesses and supported 1,200 businesses in total.  Generated over £15m in new sales

As far as I can tell, SRB6 has ended, enrolment in Enterprise City is closed (the scheme ends in March 09) and I can’t find any info about Creative Birmingham at all.

D’log tried looking into the schemes mentioned when Coun Summerfield responded to the issue of support for the creative sector last month. He had problems finding any useful information too.

The thing is, maybe there are lots of helpful support schemes out there but how many eligible people/companies know about them and where’s the information being made available? I guess the place to go would be Creative Launchpad (currently residing online here) or Business Link but it’s a shame the info doesn’t seem to be collected together somewhere useful.

Actually, I’ve just found West Midlands Finance, which describes itself as “comprehensive, continually updated finance information for West Midlands SMEs”. Feel free to register and have a root about but the need to register has put me right off – what’s the need exactly? Humph.

The wonderful SITA trust have blessed us with the resources to install a new heating system, disabled loos, insulation and a new kitchen!  This will be stage one of our ongoing plans to develop the place as the (informal) venue for experimental arts in the city and operate year-round.

There’s good news and bad(-ish) news: the bad(-ish) news is that public activity will be suspended until late summer while things are sorted out.  The good news is that they’d like people to help out with, in their words:

mainly smashing stuff and chucking it away/recycling, quite therapeutic, actually

So if you’d like to get involved drop them a line.

There are still a few events happening at the Edge in the meantime – the Strange Ways Cheapside Show is there until 12 July and there are some talks on 25 July which I’ll blog about later.