Birmingham Review Archives - Page 55 of 60 -

November 1, 2017

BREVIEW: All Years Leaving @ Hare & Hounds 21.10.17

Words by Emily Doyle / Pics by Cameron Goodyer

Presented by This Is Tmrw, All Years Leaving is entering its fifth year – returning to it’s Hare & Hounds birthplace as a bona fide institution of the local live scene. I’m ashamed at this point to admit I’ve never been before, but the line-up for 2017 is too good to miss. I’m there for doors on the Saturday, unsure what to expect.

People are already milling in the Stables. Terror Watts are having a pre-set Guinness outside. Upon entering the main room, the smoke clears and animations by Johnny Foreigner’s own Lewes Herriot are visible; a giant with flaming fists looks down on the proceedings from projector screens hung around the venue.

Terror Watts kick off proceedings to a healthy crowd. They deliver a pitch perfect set of fan-favourites. The stupidly catchy ‘Time Bomb’ is an ear worm if ever there was one – good luck shaking that from your head for the rest of the weekend. They close the set with newest single, ‘Tough Guy’, released this summer on PNKSLM. It’s a perfect slice of sunshine-y slacker rock.

The room is already a real who’s-who of the Birmingham music scene. Steve Hadley of Setting Son Records is ferrying gear up and down the stairs; He sports an ‘I Am A Hungry Ghost’ badge like a proud dad. Tim Mobbs of Table Scraps is snapping away as the event photographer. I step outside to take a call from Birmingham Review’s absentee editor, Ed King, who is checking I got there okay, remembered to take an exercise book, pencil case, packed lunch and the like. While on the phone I look down from the balcony onto the smoking area to see James Brown of Mutes, immaculately made up, sheltering from the drizzle and nursing a pint of Blue Moon.

Back upstairs, Her’s slowly fade in an uptempo drum loop. The Liverpudlian two-piece look at home on a stage. Bassist, Audun Laading, bops round wearing a floaty cardigan and high-hanging Rickenbacker. Fragile, sighing vocals float above lush interwoven guitars. The assembled crowd sways. The jaunty ‘Speed Racer’, complete with sequenced hand claps, snaps the room out of its dream pop reverie for a brief moment. Guitarist Steven Fitzpatrick speaks up:

“Has everyone got a good strong beer? No? That’s good, we don’t wanna be supporting beer all the time. I like Vimto.” A pause as Laading configures the next drum loop. “This one’s a slow sexy one for all the lovers in the room – and all the straight edge people.”

They launch into ‘Cool With You’, the six minute centrepiece of their 2017 Heist or Hit release, Songs of Her’s. Half way through it lapses into a bossa nova jam. Her’s closes their set on their swooning shoe-gaze waltz, ‘What Once Was’. I speak to Josh Frost of Mutes afterwards and he suggests that Her’s would have made a good roadhouse band in the new series of Twin Peaks.

Downstairs, the Stables are cosy and filled with the smell of pulled pork. The crowd floods down to watch Miles Cocker. It’s at this point I’m thankful of the lack of set time clashes – the line up is solid, and there’s not one act you’d be willing to miss.

Cocker usually supplies bass for notorious sex punks Youth Man. Today he shows his softer side, strumming on a beat up white Stratocaster. Heartfelt lyrics like, “maybe she’ll grind my bones to make her bread / or shoot an apple straight off my head” are quickly offset as Cocker comments, “yeah, you can get pretty poetic about diarrhoea”.

Back in the main room, Swampmeat Family Band are turning up the heat. A cover of the Rolling Stone’s ‘Down Home Girl’ slots neatly into the set alongside their own tracks. Classic rock ’n’ roll moves paired with numbers like, ‘Brand New Cadillac’ and ‘I’m a Fucker, Not a Fighter’ make them the perfect party band. And party they shall, as Danny C takes pleasure in announcing. “We’re back here on the 21st for a Christmas party with the Hungry Ghosts!” Fellow Hungry Ghost, Jay Dyer, is with me – we exchange excited glances and head to the bar. I run into a rather jet-lagged Bryony Williams. She fills me in on her set at The Sunflower Lounge supporting Denai Moore, and her recent adventures in New Orleans, both of which sound surreal.

West Yorkshire trio The Orielles saunter on to stage for some mellow indie pop. They sip beer from plastic bottles. They play their new single, ‘Let Your Dogtooth Grow’, which offsets a pleasingly sloppy riff against lilting drums. At this point my gig-going partner in crime and All Years Leaving veteran, Jo Chustecki, shows up. She is just in time to hear them close the set with the much awaited, ‘Sugar Tastes Like Salt’. The ominous bass gets the crowd moving.

I realise it’s been hours since breakfast. Jay and I head out to the chip shop over the road for sustenance, and make it back just in time for PINS.

Since first hearing their track ‘Aggrophobe’, I’ve been looking for a chance to see PINS live. They waste no time filling the room with the driving bass of ‘Hot Slick’. Bassist, Anna Donigan, begins to pogo and the others follow suit. The strutting ‘Heart Is a Machine’ starts up and vocalist, Faith Vern, grasps the mic with both hands and wails at the crowd. Kyoko Swan delivers pounding synths.

New single ‘Serve the Rich’ is anthemic, and Vern takes the opportunity to let the crowd know that, “we told everyone that this single is sold out, but we have a few copies to sell after the set. Come find us later”. A savvy move indeed and one that causes much deliberation at the merch stand later (I am unable to choose a record and on Donigan’s sound advice end up going away with a T-shirt). At the end of their set it dawns on me that they didn’t even play ‘Aggrophobe’. As great as it is, PINS are certainly no one-hit-wonders.

Back in the Stables, The Bank Accounts are popping open a magnum of prosecco. They entrust it to a friend of the band who is here on her own, and tell her to go make friends. She hands it around the crowd as they sing: “I just bought an Amazon Alexa. I don’t need it, but it’s just nice to have someone to turn the lights off for you”.

I am standing with Jo, Jay and James Brown. We all take a swig of prosecco, except for James, who is passed over for some reason. He wistfully watches the bottle drift away. Jo comments that she feels as though she’s just wandered into a rural pub, perhaps in Cornwall, and doesn’t know what’s going on.

The Bank Accounts proceed to play a tongue in cheek interpretation of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ before producing a bottle of spiced rum. They are excellent hosts. They play a song about having rum and frontman, Benjamin P D Kane, wanders into the crowd to offer it around. He is immediately accosted by local artist and writer Priscilla Baker, who envelops him in a bear hug. James gets his hands on the bottle of rum and drinks his fill.

Hurrying back up the stairs we are greeted by the growling bass of The Wytches, The dirge of ‘Who Rides’ builds to a crescendo as the room fills up. The band are solemn on stage. Doom laden riffs like ‘Ghost House’ and ‘Throned’ cement The Wytches as a much heavier band than they were in 2014 when Annabel Dream Reader was released, and the stuttering ‘C-Side’ is the star of the set.

As they’re packing down, I lean over the monitor to inspect bassist Daniel Rumsey’s pedalboard. In doing so I catch the eye of a similar die-hard fan, who narrows his eyes at me. I compliment him on his Black Angels shirt and ask if he was at their gig at the Institute last month. “Yeah”, he replies. “We met at the merch stand for A Place To Bury Strangers. You tried to convince me to shell out £200 for a Death By Audio pedal.” I maintain that this would have been a sound investment.

Sitting at the top of Saturday’s line up are Macclesfield alt-rockers Spring King. After a long day of drinking and dancing, the crowd were ready. As soon as they begin to play, the area in front of the stage is a churning mass of bodies. Their 2016 album Tell Me If You Like To is composed of wall-to-wall live winners, and they roll them out one after another without pausing for breath. Before long the crowd are up on stage dancing around the band, and Spring King revel in it. Drummer, Tarek Musa, hands a stick to someone so they can bash away at his kit.

Multiple circle pits later and it’s all over for Saturday at All Years Leaving. The audience members dissolve into the night, those with the prized black wristbands ready to do it all again tomorrow. PINS are outside chatting to Bryony Williams, smoking and planning their journey to Melkweg, Amsterdam. In a discerning booking, they will be opening for The Breeders.

Terror Watts @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on Terror Watts, visit www.theterrorwatts.bandcamp.com

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Her’s @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on Her’s, visit www.thatbandofhers.com

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Swampmeat Family Band @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on Swampmeat Family Band, visit www.swampmeatfamilyband.wixsite.com/swampfb

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The Orielles @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on The Orielles, visit www.soundcloud.com/theorielles

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The Wytches @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on The Wytches, visit www.thewytches.com

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Spring King @ All Year Leaving 21.10.17 / Cameron Goodyer – Birmingham Review

For more on Spring King, visit www.springkingband.com

For more on All Years Leaving Festival 2017, including online ticket sales, visit www.facebook.com/allyearsleaving

For more from This Is Tmrw, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.thisistmrw.co.uk

For more from the Hare & Hounds, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

October 28, 2017

BREVIEW: The War of the Worlds @ Old Joint Stock Theatre 25-31.10.2017

Words by Lucy Mounfield

Tin Robot Theatre specialise in bold plays adapted from well-known texts, with previous productions at the Old Joint Stock – Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart – all being well received. But can their new take on H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction The War of the Worlds live up to this burgeoning reputation?

First published in 1897, The War of the Worlds has since entered the popular consciousness, spawning dozens of derivative works including radio plays, films and theatre productions. The iconic 1978 concept album, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, proved to be a phenomenal success – selling three million copies in the UK alone and spawning a long-running stage musical.

Tin Robot Theatre’s production hearkens back to an earlier time. Whilst researching for the play, director Adam Carver listened to the infamous 1938 radio play directed and narrated by Orson Welles, broadcast as a Halloween Special on CBS in America – infamous because many of those listening to the opening ‘warning’ thought they were being informed of a real alien invasion. It is this sense of realism, as opposed to the high camp of the 1978 concept album, that characterises the Tin Robot Theatre production.

As we enter the studio space, configured as a theatre-in-the-round, the scene is already set. A desk is in the centre; on the desk lies a contraption upon which the bespectacled Pearson (Touwa Craig-Dunn) is working. Upon the table are two silver arched desk lamps – the arms of which evoke the legs of the alien tripods, a chilling reminder of the aggressors that we never actually see. We take our seats and don our wireless headphones, tuning in to a crackling radio broadcast about a red sky over England. The inclusion of factual information alongside fictitious broadcasts like this provides verisimilitude; Tin Robot Theatre are interested in the ‘totality’ of the play, and touches like this serve to immerse the audience, creating the feeling that we really are listening in on the end of the world via radio.

Throughout the production the year or date of the atrocities is never mentioned – the props are neutral and this adds to the sense of universality surrounding the themes of conflict. Indeed, aliens are not referred to as the culprits of the devastation until Pearson hears from the first voice (Grace Hussey-Burd) and the artillery man (Joel Heritage). Up until this point I half expected them to say the heat-burns were the result of a terrorist attack. These theatrical tropes enable us to reflect on our own society and how invariably desensitised we have become to war; in this age of fake news and social media, the ‘truth’ is a suspect notion and something that Carver channels by bombarding our senses with sounds, voices and news slogans that are on a constant repeat.

Tin Robot Theatre’s The War of the Worlds is essentially a radio play, which is both its strength and its weakness. Of the cast we only ever see Pearson, as the rest are heard only through the headphones, and whilst Craig-Dunn’s performance was naturalistic the burden of conveying the emotional impact of the scenes narrated by the other characters falls on his shoulders. The remote cast clearly enunciates their lines, sometimes too much so, but the pace of Pearson’s performance is also sometimes bogged down by repetition of movements and dialog.

The script draws heavily from Wells’ writing. Often, descriptive passages were lifted wholesale and tweaked slightly so that they might work more plausibly as dialog. In places this works to great effect, but at times it also falls flat. In the 1897 text, Wells’ opening lines crackle with the menace of a hostile universe; here they are diluted and deadened, lacking their original impact – ending up as the worst of both worlds, not quite narration and not quite dialog.

These things are not entirely negative however. The disjoint between Craig-Dunn and the rest of the cast serves to produce a sense of unreality; you are never sure whether these voices are real, whether they are in his head, or whether the aliens even exist at all. The doorway on which Pearson pins his notes, and through which he exits at the end, is a constant reminder of the uncertainty of the outside world.

One of the highlights of the play is the curate’s (Jack Robertson) hysterical breakdown. Here, sound was used effectively to convey a sense of panic as we hear screaming voices, gun fire, machinery, and radio distortion, reaching an unbearable crescendo. To see Pearson wreathing and wrenching on the floor is just as unbearable and highlights the horror of what we are hearing. This is where the play comes alive – Craig-Dunn’s performance is compelling as he reacts with horror to the audio sound emitted from his radio.

Overall, Carver and company deliver an atmospheric and bold take on The War of the Worlds, immersing the audience in a claustrophobic apocalypse and evoking the best of 20^th century Sci Fi. And despite a somewhat jarring end with the opening song from Jeff Wayne’s rock opera, which reduces a thought provoking finale to a postmodern self-reference, the tone of Tin Robot Theatre’s The War of the Worlds is serious, bleak and a far cry from the 1978 concept album.

Tin Robot Theatre‘s production of The War of the Worlds runs at the Old Joint Stock until Tuesday 31st October. For direct event info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on The War of the Worlds, visit www.oldjointstock.co.uk/whats-on/the-war-of-the-worlds

For more on Tin Robot Theatre, visit www.adamgcarver.com/theatre/tin-robot-theatre/

For more from The Old Joint Stock, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.oldjointstock.co.uk

October 27, 2017

BPREVIEW: Tropical Soundclash @ Hare & Hounds 28.10.17

Words by Charlotte Heap

Birmingham based DJ and producer, Sam Redmore, is collaborating with Spinx and The Mighty Magoo to present Tropical Sounclash at the Hare & Hounds on Saturady 28^th October.

Doors open at 9pm with music running until 2am. Entry is free before 10, with a pay on the door charge of £5 thereafter. For direct event info, including venue details, click here.

Many may be familiar with Sam Redmore’s eclectic style from his previous music event Freestyle, which spent many years as a familiar feature of the Birmingham music scene – starting at The Bull’s Head, before moving the Hare & Hounds in 2014. Since then, Redmore’s star has continued to rise, releasing music on 2 Dogs and Felt Tip, alongside remixing numerous artists including DJ Vadim.

Freestyle was a showcase event for local hip-hop luminaries, while Redmore’s remixes began to regularly feature on BBC 6 Music whilst the man behind them made increasingly frequent guest appearances on Craig Charles’ Funk & Soul show.

Birmingham Review interviewed Sam Redmore back in 2014, when Freestyle moved to the Hare & Hounds, where he discussed his desire to “support local artists, and the music scene in general”. Three years to the month later and Redmore clearly feels the time is now ripe for a new, fruitier fixture to the Hare’s already well-respected events calendar – adopting the name Tropical Soundclash.

To deliver this, Sam Redmore has reunited with co-host Spinx for the first time in over a year, an artist also known for his soulful and varied sets who is fresh from a summer schedule of festivals including Shambala, Green Man, Samphire and Glastonbury. The pair will be joined by the local percussionist Mighty Magoo, who will be playing on live percussion at the Tropical Soundclash events.

Neither Sam Redmore not Spinx are new to the world of music promotion, but Tropical Soundclash is a shift away from Freestyle’s familiar hip-hop focus which may surprise some of their more regular crowd.

Perhaps anticipating people’s curiosity, but also showing his flair for promotion, Redmore has put together a Spotify playlist to tempt the uncommitted – giving some weight to the promise that Tropical Soundclash will combine ‘afrobeat, highlife, samba, salsa and more with house, broken beat and bass’.

Sam Redmore’s Tropical Sounclash Spotify Playlist:

Tropical Soundclash comes to the Hare & Hounds on Saturday 28th October, running from 9pm to 2am. For more on Tropical Soundclash, including venue details, click here.

For more from Hare & Hounds, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

October 27, 2017

ALBUM: Mountain – Howie Payne 27.10.17

Words by James Attwood / Pics courtesy of Sonic PR

After an eight year break spent gathering musical influence from the mellow mundane of real life, Howie Payne is back with his self professed ‘best record so far’.

The result of this is Mountain, Payne‘s second solo LP since the dissipation of his previous band The Stands in 2005, which is set for release on the 27th October on Full Stack Records. Recording sessions took place at London’s prestigious Ark Studios during final week of July, whilst the rest of the UK witnessed a heatwave. This in mind, Payne and band still slaved away ruthlessly to produce a well crafted songwriter album, and if anything this added to the atmosphere of the album.

The influence of Americana and the great American songwriters of the 70’s is apparent throughout Mountain. However, this does not necessarily mean that the album sounds dated or appeals solely to the older generations.

Album opener ‘Quick as the Moon’ is reminiscent of the heartfelt, earthy folk-pop of modern artists such as Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty. With its several layers of vocal harmonies, tambourine and subtle upright piano melodies, ‘Quick as the Moon’ lends itself effortlessly to the Americana/Folk genres, as is the case for other tracks ‘All of these things’ and ‘Hold steady the Wire’. The vocal harmonies heard throughout Mountain assist Payne‘s songwriter style arrangements in escalating into grandiose chorus’, similar to those of innovators such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

‘Some Believer, Sweet Dreamer’ is driving by ballsy country guitars and could easily be a single by Neil Young back in his heyday. In a time of synthesisers and programming it’s nice to hear an album that utilises predominantly organic instruments and in particular, the human voice. “But you’re quick like a hurricane, bright like a rising sun…” shows Payne‘s mastery of imagery within his lyricism, alongside his clear knack for arrangement and composition.

Lead single ‘The Brightest Star’ is the most commercial moment of the album, with its blend of piano hooks, strummed acoustic parts and shuffle drumbeats that form a clear pop structure and four chord chorus.

But if it’s the lazy rootsy-Americana of Gold-era Ryan Adams that you seek, you will also find plenty to occupy yourself with on ‘Holding on’, a love song that floats along steady and shows Payne‘s band at their finest.

The story is much the same for both ‘High Times’ and ‘After Tonight’. Here Howie Payne is accompanied solely by his acoustic guitar, yet the songs are as engaging as those that surround it. ‘After Tonight’ also provides an effective moment of solitude on the album, whilst ‘Thoughts on Thoughts’ is a modern folk number using traditional guitar melodies to create hooks and layers of harmonised vocal to add an almost medieval sound to the music.

Then, finally, we have ‘Evangeline (Los Angeles)’ – a grand, perfect summary to Mountain, combining layers of vocals once more, yet reverberating electric guitar parts that provide the sonic backdrop for tender picked acoustic guitar.

All in all, Mountain is a joyous and pleasant listen. And although its genre is arguably dated, and some may say holds little relevance to today’s popular music climate, the album is still intriguing to the ear of someone who appreciates music at its core; Mountain carries a wholly organic and refreshing sound. Plus, as I have already mentioned, Howie Payne‘s use of his own voice to create layers of texture brings an entirely different edge to his music – this is also to be applauded and hooked me upon listening.

With an album as well crafted in every respect of the word such as Mountain, Payne fully deserves a place up there with the great songwriters of today.

‘The Brightest Star’ – Howie Payne

Mountain, by Howie Payne, is released on 27^th October via Full Stack Records. For more on Howie Payne, including online album sales and live gig dates, visit www.soundcloud.com/howiepayne

For more from Full Stack Records, visit www.facebook.com/fullstackrecords

October 25, 2017October 25, 2017

BPREVIEW: Screening Rights Film Festival @ mac 26.10-01.11.17

Words by Heather Kincaid

Returning for its third year in 2017, Screening Rights Film Festival is Birmingham’s international festival of social justice film –screenings features from around the world, with Q&A sessions and panel discussions on the themes and issues they address.

Held at mac, Screening Rights Film Festival 2017 will run from Thursday 26 October until Wednesday 1 November – with ticket deals available for people booking multiple screenings. For more info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

According to the Screening Rights Film Festival website, ‘The need for heartfelt films about the depths of human adversity around the world has grown enormously in recent decades’ – as the festival organisers seek to inspire and develop debate by shining a light on filmmakers responding to major contemporary concerns. At the heart of the project is the question of the potential for film, both drama and documentary, ‘to affect, or even effect, personal, social and political change’, whether by informing, provoking, moving, inciting action, connecting people or simply bearing witness to events.

Emerging out of research conducted by former University of Birmingham film lecturer Dr Michele Aaron, Screening Rights Film Festival has spent the last couple of years steadily establishing a place in the city’s cultural calendar. With Aaron having recently taken up a post at Warwick, this year the festival has been helped by the joint support of both universities, as well as a base at mac Birmingham.

Building on her long-held interest in the ethics of film and spectatorship, the project was originally kicked off by a symposium on ‘Screening Vulnerability’, beginning as an event series co-organised by Aaron and PhD student, John Horne. In 2016, it expanded to encompass twelve films screened in five different venues. This year, however, the focus has narrowed again, with just nine films being shown at mac. It’s a little smaller then, but the greater simplicity afforded by a single, centralised location might well work in the festival’s favour in terms of attracting audiences.

Unsurprisingly, the films being shown at the Screening Rights Film Festival reflect the organisers’ specific areas of expertise and investigation, as well as being influenced by hot topics on the global sociopolitical stage. Dr Aaron has described how, in recent years, her focus has shifted from writing about “power and ethics of representation and spectatorship in relationship to, principally, mainstream English cinema,” and towards a more outward-looking approach with an interest in film practice, often collaborating with filmmakers and community groups.

Among the manifestations of this change has been an intensive smartphone filmmaking course delivered to university students from the West Bank with the help of Palestinian youth advocacy agency, Sharek. The best short film to come out of that ‘Tammayaz’ scheme was screened at last year’s Screening Rights Film Festival, alongside Mohamed Jabaly’s and Abu Marzouq’s Ambulance. Meanwhile, John Horne’s PhD thesis concerns the ‘western’ spectator and the ‘Arab Spring’. Accordingly, films from and/or about the Middle East feature prominently on this year’s programme, making up a total of six out of the nine films being shown.

2017’s line-up includes the documentary Ghost Hunting, in which Palestinian director Raed Andoni confronts his demons head-on by recruiting a team to help him build a replica of the Israeli interrogation centre where he was held at the age of 18.

Drama Tramontane follows the struggle of a young Lebanese man to uncover the truth about his origins and identity after discovering that his ID card is a forgery; while Raving Iran sees two DJs forced to make a choice between home and family or moving abroad to pursue their passion for forbidden ‘Western’ music.

In The Other Side of Home, a Turkish woman raises questions about identity in a moving, personal tribute to the still-denied Armenian genocide of 1915; in Mr Gay Syria, the crowdfunded debut feature of Ayşe Toprak, a group of LGBT Syrian refugees kick back against intolerance in Turkey.

There’s also Notes to Eternity, a more ‘impressionistic meditation’ on the Israel-Palestine conflict, centred on the lives and ideas of prominent thinkers and Israeli policy critics Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Sara Roy and Robert Fisk.

Another area of interest for the festival’s creators has been depictions of illness, madness and even death on screen. Among Aaron’s more recent projects, for example, has been the Life: Moving exhibition, comprising a series of films created with residents of Erdington’s John Taylor Hospice, lately displayed at Birmingham REP as part of a wider UK and international tour.

This year, Screening Rights Film Festival has joined forces with Flatpack Assemble to present a screening of Jennifer Brea’s Unrest, which charts the director’s own experience of living with ME, otherwise known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Despite the fact that thousands of people worldwide independently attest to similar symptoms, medical science has so far failed to offer any explanation for the condition, leading many to conclude that it is purely psychosomatic. In an attempt to conduct some investigations of her own and potentially change attitudes towards the illness, Brea connected with fellow sufferers, piecing together her film from recorded Skype interviews, iPhone footage and professionally shot vérité.

Coinciding with mac Birmingham’s ongoing Women and Protest season (13 September – 26 November), Jaha Dukureh also uses personal experience as a springboard for her film Jaha’s Promise. Now based in the US, the activist began her life in Gambia where a significant number of girls are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) during infancy. Having been cut at just a week old, Jaha herself did not discover the truth or what it would mean for her until she was married to an older man at the age of 15. After having a daughter of her own, however, she vowed to return to her home country to confront its deeply embedded culture of FGM, whatever the cost.

Finally, Nick de Pencier’s Black Code uses The Citizen Lab’s 2009 exposure of global internet spy ring ‘Ghostnet’ as a starting point for a chilling exploration of 21^stCentury surveillance culture. In an unnerving trailer that combines archive footage with satellite imagery and CCTV-style shots, Citizen Lab director Dr Ronald Deibert describes the highly detailed and growing “digital exhaust” produced by Internet users and how three developments – mobile devices, social media and cloud computing – have resulted in “the most profound change in communication technology in the whole of human history”.

But this isn’t just a case of emails being intercepted: there are hints of cameras and audio devices being hacked and switched on unbeknownst to owners, and documents being extracted from hard-drive storage. “This is where Big Data meets Big Brother,” the trailer concludes. Prepare to leave feeling a little paranoid…

Unrest – @ mac 27.10.17 / Screening Rights Film Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWZ1_-7KOS4

Screening Rights International Film Festival is at mac Birmingham from Thursday 26 October until Wednesday 1 November – ticket deals are available for people booking multiple screenings. For more info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Screening Rights Film Festival, visit www.screeningrights.org

For more information about mac Birmingham, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk