A Double Bill Without the Bill
Wallis Allen
It’s not uncommon to hear a frustrated but justified “nothing’s free these days” when seeking out a bit of fun, and if you’re looking at the price of a pint, then let my voice be part of the chorus. Yet seek and ye shall find and within Digbeth ye can find 2 free nights of cinema every week.
Modestly promoted, Pan-Pan has been hosting ‘PFI’ Thursdays since 2023 and, to the delight of film thrill seekers everywhere, 2024 saw the beginning of Mystery Mockingbird Fridays. I set out to complete this Digbeth double bill and luxuriate in the spoils of independent cinema, one a mere 3-minute walk from the other (as approximated by Google Maps).
Thursday
Pan-Pan greets me as I assume it would feel rocking up to an extended family reunion, not knowing if your favourite cousins will be there yet, or if it will be you against a sea of unidentifiable aunts. This is to say, there might be friends there, folks you recognise from previous weeks, friendly faced strangers, or it might just be you and Vlad, the owner.
It was pretty quiet when I arrived, just after 8pm. The film was ‘Interface’ – a 2022 animation, written and directed by Justin Tomchuck. Initially released as an episodic internet series, we watched the full run, each episode seamlessly cut together. I put the relative quietness down to the obscurity of the film choice (spoiler alert: it was pretty weird) but generally I adopt an “in Vlad we trust” attitude to these screenings, and it’s not been a wasted evening yet.
I grabbed a cola at the bar and surveyed my seating options, noting that the layout was different to the last PFI I attended. Pan-Pan impresses with its use of space because it’s one big room that successfully functions as gig-space, cinema, bar and dancefloor. In the same way our living rooms exist in a multi-functional necessity, Pan-Pan’s balance of props and furniture are marked out depending on what the night requires, assisted into cosiness with warm yellow and sultry red lighting.
I spot the top of my friend Jacob’s head – result! He’s bagged the big leather seats; I claim the one next to him. The film’s due to start at 8:30 and we chat until 8:50 when the pressing of play directs our attention to the screen.
A few minutes shy of 2 hours later, as the credits roll, I wonder how much I’m going to pretend I understood of the film. “What do you think that all meant then?” Phew – it seems I’m off the hook. I come clean that I hadn’t always understood what was happening, let alone what it all meant. This was enough fuel for discussion to catch the last train home, but no spirits were dampened by the elusive explanation.
Indeed, this is the beauty of a PFI night. Often, it’s a film that you might not have come across or may not choose for a solo stream, but one that gets the cogs whirring and you feel the better for committing to it. Compound that with the fact that it’s completely free and a whole evening out, Thursday bedtime lights out are accompanied by a justified smug satisfaction. Excluding travel costs, I only bought the one cola so totalled on the unheard-of end-of-night spend of £2.75. With that price, Vlad could have put on Andy Warhol’s ‘Empire’ and you’d be hard pushed to complain.
Friday
Editor’s Note: For the sake of upholding The Mockingbird’s Mysteries, owner Lee Nabbs has requested our censoring of the names of any film shown at the Late Night Mystery Film Club. For threatening to expose the mystery, Wallis has been disposed of.
As the day progressed, I became increasingly worried Mockingbird would spoof us all with Andy Warhol’s ‘Empire’. Perhaps you don’t need to worry about the 10pm start time because public transport will have finished and begun again by the time we’re getting out of there?
Being aware of what previous weeks had been, I attempted to predict what they’d treat us to this time, like when you press shuffle on your iPod and convince yourself you’ve figured out the pattern your tunes are being distributed in. From my analysis I decided it was going to be something almost double bluff-ish, different enough to be a surprise, but similar enough to complement a previous week. I was strapping in for guns, beasts – maybe even a car chase – and I confidently told Jacob so on the drive in.
We rocked up at about 9:45 and the foyer was nicely humming with other clue seekers. I was pleasantly surprised by how busy it was and once we were sat down in screen 1, I could see that it was almost sold out. I’ve been to Mockingbird for your typical cinema gig aplenty and have experienced being both the only person in screen 1 (All of Us Strangers) and when it’s been jam-packed (Poor Things), so it was great to land in the latter. As the final stragglers took their seats, we brainstormed what our fantasy film line-up would be and whether we thought they could ever make an appearance as the Mystery Mockingbird film.
There were 15 minutes of ads. This was unexpected but immediately made sense – Mockingbird is a full-time independent cinema in a city of dwindling independent cinemas so of course they would try and tempt you back in the near future under a full price ticket. I took it as a new opportunity to decipher what we’d be watching, the mystery now mere moments away from being revealed. Truth be told, I was concerned as many of the adverts were for scary looking films – had I got it all wrong? Was it going to be a completely left-field selection of Saw IV? Nightmare on Elm Street? I couldn’t stomach it.
Then – as quickly as my fear had risen – action! No cinema title card disarmed me, but as with the ads, it quickly made sense. Whilst on the surface the mystery was solved, for me personally it was not – what was this film? A bedroom, the back of a head…whispers frantically hissed under the daily affirmations of the voiceover until – phew! I’m off the hook as a full frame opening title inducts me into the secret circle. Although I was spared this time, it has ignited a fantasy that one week I make it through the entire film without having a clue what it is. Tonight though, the choice is better than all my predictions, I feel as if this film has been chosen to give me personally, a fun-filled Friday night and I don’t even mind the occasional flash of a smart-watch notification or obscenely loud sweet wrapper rustle – after all, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and after only needing to contribute the 0.95p ticket booking fee, I wasn’t about to start complaining. Again, I bought one drink for this night out, bringing my total spend, excluding travel costs, to £3.95. For a full cinema experience, it’s absurdly good value and I sleep a contended deep and happy sleep for the second night in a row.
My intuition tells me the motivation behind these cinema nights being free is more involved with box-office and production company licensing than the scheme of luring audiences back to spend more money, but personally I’d see that as a clever proposal. Purse strings are tighter than ever, so being able to trial a night out for comfortably well under a tenner to see if I enjoy it does motivate me to go back for other billings at each venue and part with more cash to do so.
You can get a text every Monday from Pan-Pan with their week to view schedule by becoming a member (for free!) here
Check out the next Late Night Mystery Film, or whatever else happens at The Mockingbird (films, I suppose) via their website.
It’s not uncommon to hear a frustrated but justified “nothing’s free these days” when seeking out a bit of fun, and if you’re looking at the price of a pint, then let my voice be part of the chorus. Yet seek and ye shall find and within Digbeth ye can find 2 free nights of cinema every week.
Modestly promoted, Pan-Pan has been hosting ‘PFI’ Thursdays since 2023 and, to the delight of film thrill seekers everywhere, 2024 saw the beginning of Mystery Mockingbird Fridays. I set out to complete this Digbeth double bill and luxuriate in the spoils of independent cinema, one a mere 3-minute walk from the other (as approximated by Google Maps).
Thursday
Pan-Pan greets me as I assume it would feel rocking up to an extended family reunion, not knowing if your favourite cousins will be there yet, or if it will be you against a sea of unidentifiable aunts. This is to say, there might be friends there, folks you recognise from previous weeks, friendly faced strangers, or it might just be you and Vlad, the owner.
It was pretty quiet when I arrived, just after 8pm. The film was ‘Interface’ – a 2022 animation, written and directed by Justin Tomchuck. Initially released as an episodic internet series, we watched the full run, each episode seamlessly cut together. I put the relative quietness down to the obscurity of the film choice (spoiler alert: it was pretty weird) but generally I adopt an “in Vlad we trust” attitude to these screenings, and it’s not been a wasted evening yet.
I grabbed a cola at the bar and surveyed my seating options, noting that the layout was different to the last PFI I attended. Pan-Pan impresses with its use of space because it’s one big room that successfully functions as gig-space, cinema, bar and dancefloor. In the same way our living rooms exist in a multi-functional necessity, Pan-Pan’s balance of props and furniture are marked out depending on what the night requires, assisted into cosiness with warm yellow and sultry red lighting.
I spot the top of my friend Jacob’s head – result! He’s bagged the big leather seats; I claim the one next to him. The film’s due to start at 8:30 and we chat until 8:50 when the pressing of play directs our attention to the screen.
A few minutes shy of 2 hours later, as the credits roll, I wonder how much I’m going to pretend I understood of the film. “What do you think that all meant then?” Phew – it seems I’m off the hook. I come clean that I hadn’t always understood what was happening, let alone what it all meant. This was enough fuel for discussion to catch the last train home, but no spirits were dampened by the elusive explanation.
Indeed, this is the beauty of a PFI night. Often, it’s a film that you might not have come across or may not choose for a solo stream, but one that gets the cogs whirring and you feel the better for committing to it. Compound that with the fact that it’s completely free and a whole evening out, Thursday bedtime lights out are accompanied by a justified smug satisfaction. Excluding travel costs, I only bought the one cola so totalled on the unheard-of end-of-night spend of £2.75. With that price, Vlad could have put on Andy Warhol’s ‘Empire’ and you’d be hard pushed to complain.
Friday
Editor’s Note: For the sake of upholding The Mockingbird’s Mysteries, owner Lee Nabbs has requested our censoring of the names of any film shown at the Late Night Mystery Film Club. For threatening to expose the mystery, Wallis has been disposed of.
As the day progressed, I became increasingly worried Mockingbird would spoof us all with Andy Warhol’s ‘Empire’. Perhaps you don’t need to worry about the 10pm start time because public transport will have finished and begun again by the time we’re getting out of there?
Being aware of what previous weeks had been, I attempted to predict what they’d treat us to this time, like when you press shuffle on your iPod and convince yourself you’ve figured out the pattern your tunes are being distributed in. From my analysis I decided it was going to be something almost double bluff-ish, different enough to be a surprise, but similar enough to complement a previous week. I was strapping in for guns, beasts – maybe even a car chase – and I confidently told Jacob so on the drive in.
We rocked up at about 9:45 and the foyer was nicely humming with other clue seekers. I was pleasantly surprised by how busy it was and once we were sat down in screen 1, I could see that it was almost sold out. I’ve been to Mockingbird for your typical cinema gig aplenty and have experienced being both the only person in screen 1 (All of Us Strangers) and when it’s been jam-packed (Poor Things), so it was great to land in the latter. As the final stragglers took their seats, we brainstormed what our fantasy film line-up would be and whether we thought they could ever make an appearance as the Mystery Mockingbird film.
There were 15 minutes of ads. This was unexpected but immediately made sense – Mockingbird is a full-time independent cinema in a city of dwindling independent cinemas so of course they would try and tempt you back in the near future under a full price ticket. I took it as a new opportunity to decipher what we’d be watching, the mystery now mere moments away from being revealed. Truth be told, I was concerned as many of the adverts were for scary looking films – had I got it all wrong? Was it going to be a completely left-field selection of Saw IV? Nightmare on Elm Street? I couldn’t stomach it.
Then – as quickly as my fear had risen – action! No cinema title card disarmed me, but as with the ads, it quickly made sense. Whilst on the surface the mystery was solved, for me personally it was not – what was this film? A bedroom, the back of a head…whispers frantically hissed under the daily affirmations of the voiceover until – phew! I’m off the hook as a full frame opening title inducts me into the secret circle. Although I was spared this time, it has ignited a fantasy that one week I make it through the entire film without having a clue what it is. Tonight though, the choice is better than all my predictions, I feel as if this film has been chosen to give me personally, a fun-filled Friday night and I don’t even mind the occasional flash of a smart-watch notification or obscenely loud sweet wrapper rustle – after all, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and after only needing to contribute the 0.95p ticket booking fee, I wasn’t about to start complaining. Again, I bought one drink for this night out, bringing my total spend, excluding travel costs, to £3.95. For a full cinema experience, it’s absurdly good value and I sleep a contended deep and happy sleep for the second night in a row.
My intuition tells me the motivation behind these cinema nights being free is more involved with box-office and production company licensing than the scheme of luring audiences back to spend more money, but personally I’d see that as a clever proposal. Purse strings are tighter than ever, so being able to trial a night out for comfortably well under a tenner to see if I enjoy it does motivate me to go back for other billings at each venue and part with more cash to do so.
You can get a text every Monday from Pan-Pan with their week to view schedule by becoming a member (for free!) here
Check out the next Late Night Mystery Film, or whatever else happens at The Mockingbird (films, I suppose) via their website.