A FESTIVAL of moving images will unite the city's art community and break out of the gallery confines this week as Single Shot opens in Manchester.

Single Shot is a celebration of simple film making and features a series of video shorts by established producers and emerging talent. The films will show on screens across the city's art venues as well as on the big screen in Exchange Square.

They are all shot in a single take and tell simple, humorous and often poignant stories, as well as explore art itself.

Ori Gersht's Pomegranate (pictured) takes 16th century art as its reference to portray a scene of still life. The scene is soon shattered by a high velocity bullet that travels across the screen in extreme slow motion, ripping through a hanging pomegranate and tearing it in half before scattering its contents over the otherwise still scene.

Israeli Gersht is a well known and respected photographer and film maker and has previously exhibited in London and Madrid.

Multi-layered

George Barber - a pioneer of fast-moving, multi-layered video shorts - brings his film Automotive to the festival, in which he depicts a man tipping paint on a road in the early morning and watching the resulting explosion of colour as the passing traffic spreads the paint around.

A short by emerging filmmaker Hyewon Kwon, Bittersweet, tells a tragic tale of a man with a congenital condition that has left him with only two fingers on each hand through a piano recital of Francis Lai's Theme From Love Story - a tune that can be played with just two fingers - while Clio Barnard's dream-like sequence Dark Glass, shot on a mobile phone, recreates memories recalled under hypnosis.

Visitors will also be able to watch and download their favourite films for free online or via Single Shot Bluevend machines at some venues. The exhibition has already earned critical acclaim and is set to travel to five other UK cities this year.

Single Shot is showing across galleries in the city centre, including The Cornerhouse, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, the Chinese Arts Centre and Urbis until January 28. Check with individual galleries for schedules and entry details.

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