Flatpack Film Festival
Every spring Flatpack takes over various venues across Birmingham, showcasing the very best in new independent films, classic cinema and a raft of movie related performances. Highlights include Bruk Out! – a dancehall inspired optical sound screening at The Mockingbird, which aims to portray dancehall in a new light, away from its hypersexualized stereotypes, and a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, produced by The Paper Cinema, which fuses live music, puppetry and onstage animation to create a truly engaging experience. With so many events to see over the course of the festival check out our unmissable top picks here.
Fri 13 – Sun 22 Apr at various venues across Birmingham flatpackfestival.org.uk/

Femme Feral: THERESAMAYSMACKDOWN
A queer feminist fight club that aims to smack down the alt-right. Can wrestling be considered art? Well, head to Vivid Projects to watch Femme Feral channel rage and angst into something captivating and take control by showing the fascists who’s boss. THERESAMAYSMACKDOWN aims to be a noise-driven, rage-filled, punk extravaganza. Head to Vivid Projects on Digbeth First Friday and prepare to get angry. This looks bloody exciting.
Fri 6 Apr 7pm at Vivid Projects, 16 Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, Birmingham, B5 5RS Free www.vividprojects.org.uk

Room Art #3
Room Art takes places over two rooms within the private home of artist’s Melissa Morris and Marcin Sz. The third edition of this unique event explores the theme of landscape whilst looking at what the term means to different people, with work being exhibited by the artist Jenny Graham whose gorgeous pieces reflect subtle, yet dramatic environments that display nature through an expressive lens. Room Art is an innovative and exciting way for audiences to experience the arts.
Sat 7 Apr 6pm at 10 Rathbone Road, Smethwick, B67 5JQ Free www.roomart.org/

Contemporary Art at Heritage Locations
Birmingham Arts Council is holding a new series of events at both Aston and Blakesley Hall, but with a difference. Instead of going to see a collection of old, grand houses filled with oil paintings and floral carpets, the settings have been reimagined and filled with an array of contemporary and modern art. Set amongst the Jacobean grandeur of Aston Hall will be contemporary paintings, photography, sculpture and film by artists including Richard Billingham and Donald Rodney, whilst at Blakesley Hall exhibits exploring the theme of nature and the garden will be on display as part of the Nature’s Presence collection.
Fri 30 March – Sun 30 Sep at Aston Hall Trinity Rd, Birmingham B6 6JD £8 www.birminghammuseums.org.uk
Fri 30 March – Sun 30 Sep at Blakesley Hall, Blakesley Rd, Birmingham B25 8RN £7  www.birminghammuseums.org.uk

Digbeth First Friday
Alongside Femme Feral’s exciting Smackdown (see above), Stryx will be hosting We Don’t Talk Anymore 2 a live performance that blurs the line between audience and artist with a participatory and challenging experience. Flatpack will be screening a variety of shorts and trailers, alongside work from Oscar Cass-Darweish and Giant Axe Field, at Centrala as a taster for Flatpack 12 with Digbeth Dining Club offering their usual huge array of delicious street food at Spotlight.
Fri 6 April at various venues across Digbeth Free digbethfirstfriday.com/