Reframing the suburban cinema: community, memory, and new opportunities

Flatpack's Wonderland project has showcased Birmingham's powerful relationship to cinema and the importance of the medium to a diversity of people throughout the West Midlands. Citizens of Birmingham clearly had, and still have, a love of cinema that warrants documenting, researching and celebrating. Representation, identity and

community can be interlinked through cinema, creating spaces of significance for marginalised populations to converge and celebrate a common cultural experience and shared identity. Local cinema specifically, offers opportunities of thematic specialisation and allows investment into community via diverse programming and

alternative content that can provide education and creation of new audiences (Heredero Diaz et al. 2018). Rajinder Dudrah's research into Vilayati Bollywood's exhibition in Birmingham specifically proves the importance of cinema in relation to South Asian communities. Dudrah claims that "Bollywood cinema-going in

Birmingham...embodies notions of diasporic belonging and a remaking of post-war urban British landscapes that sustain and develop Black British public spheres" (Dudrah, 2002). I will extend the Wonderland project through an exploration of queer cinema in Birmingham's post-war landscape

as an aspect of cinema-going and exhibition history. The interrelation of place and queer cinema has been under researched and I believe there is justification for an exploration into the exhibition of queer cinema within Birmingham and the impact that this may have had on queer communities, especially those in specific areas of the

City. Through this research I would hope to contribute a greater understanding of the ways in which exhibition of queer cinema may have impacted and held importance to the building of queer communities and queer identity both historically and in a more contemporary context, additionally this will inform future development plans for queer

cinema. One of the aims of Wonderland is to explore the stories associated with cinema and how the medium has helped to shape the lives of the people of Birmingham. Birmingham is a city which is generally proud of its industrial

heritage, strong connections to the Labour movement and its diverse cultural blend (Holt; Griffin, 2003). I believe this research will yield unique research related to these characteristics of Birmingham's heritage and culture with specific neighbourhoods having their own unique struggles and history additionally.

The project will adopt a mixed methodological approach. I will interview members of Birmingham's queer community about their experiences of cinema and how this impacted their lives as queer Birmingham residents. A range of archives, including formal local and national in addition to personal archives, would be used as well. I would draw

on ethnographic methods, including walking tours of places such as the 'gay village' in Birmingham, to gain a physical understanding of the place. Queer theory and cultural theory will be crucial to the methodological framing

of this project. Prominent theorists in these fields of study such as Judith Butler and their studies into the theory of queer performance and Richard Dyer and Stuart Hall for studies into the representation and post-war community formations will offer significant contributions in terms of understanding the theoretical purpose of this research.