I paid a visit to Urbis on Friday, mainly to check out the aforementioned Best of Manchester exhibition (the Rags to Bitches and UHC work being the highlights). The place is full of exhibitions at the moment though, from the welcome greenery of Urban Gardening to the ever-so-bright Matthew Williamson fashion retrospective.

I’m saving How Manga Took Over The World, which opened in March and runs until 27 September, for a rainy day. Feedback for the exhibition, which looked pretty substantial from the floor above, has been hit and miss so far.

And, for some reason, not much has been mentioned about the accompanying anime film screenings throughout the summer months:

Urbis is open until 8pm from July on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. To celebrate the long summer nights we have organised evening anime screenings, as part of the Manga exhibition. Manga movies for kids will show every Thursday in August.

We’re half way through the schedule now but remaining highlights include Howl’s Moving Castle (21 August), Spirited Away (28 August), Animatrix (12 September) and – saving possibly the biggest anime masterpiece til last – Akira (20 September).

All screenings are free but places are on a first come, first served basis.

You may recall that a fringe-of-sorts ran alongside last year’s Manchester International Festival. Its organisers then returned in mid-January, for Not Part of New Years Eve – and they’re now makes a third outing for their own arts festival this summer.

Lasting 10 days (3-12 July), the inaugural festival features 29 events – plus four one-day sub-festivals. Again, Not Part of Festival seeks to gain extra publicity for its theatre, comedy, music, poetry, film and art events by placing them under one name.

The Not Part of website, which has a full brochure, keeps timing out for me but, from yesterday’s newsletter, here are some potential highlights:

• Theatre: Below the Belt @ The Waldorf Hotel
• Theatre: 2 Plays, 2 Writers, 1 Cast @ Adelphi Studio, Salford
• Poetry: Latvian Poets @ Central Library
• Exhibition: Hats off to Cheetham Hill @ The Jewish Museum
• Multi-disciplinary: Not Part of NYE (redux) @ Moho Live
• Art and music: Birds Need Trees (Jim Noir, Aidan Smith etc) @ Urbis

The organisers are asking people to be part of Not Part of – so email them if you can film parts of the festival or just want to volunteer generally. You can also visit Not Part of on Facebook and Myspace, or read a Q&A with organiser Gareth McMann here.

I’ve mentioned the work of Old Trafford-based LetsGoGlobal.tv a couple of times before but Friday 8 February sees their annual talent showcase at MohoLive on Tib Street:

Come and help us set the mis-en-scene for a FREE explosion of films, music, bands and DJ’s. Lets Go Expo 08 is an exciting showcase of filmmaking talent and will be broacast LIVE online and into SecondLife. Featuring live music from RYNA, THE HIDDEN REVOLUTION, SALTY LIPS and FRAZER KINGS.

A selection of films will also be broadcast on the BBC Big Screen Manchester from 8pm. More information here.

Meanwhile, according to this comment, Manchester’s online TV community just grew some more:

Welcome to Manchester-live.tv, the UK’s first local-based online television service. Here you will find everything and anything related to Manchester, from the origins of Northern Soul to the latest celebrity events.

But possibly the greatest thing about Manchester-live.tv is that you are able to contribute by uploading your videos and show the world your own broadcasting skills. A group has just been formed on Facebook – Manchester Live TV! – Please join.

It’s early days but there’s already plenty of interesting stuff up there including historic footage of a Manchester Beatles concert, Frank Sidebottom’s excellent Manchester Medley and New Order performing at the Hacienda (check out Hooky’s lovely hair!).

Yup, it’s all happening in Manchester right now so here’s another link-dump…

On top of all the current Urban Screens activity – including the aforementioned A Wall is a Screen tonight – there’s also a short film night happening at Islington Mill tonight. Future Shorts features work from Poland, France, Denmark, Japan, USA, Australia and UK. It runs from 7.30pm and carries on until 2am thanks to a link-up with art club night Subtefuge, which promises ‘pyscho goulash’ from Hungarian trio Agoskodo Teliverek.

Next, if you thought Manchester International Festival was an over-hyped waste of money, look away. If not, you might consider voting for it in the UK Festival Awards 2007. MIF is up for both Best New Festival and the Innovation Award – and the only negative is that you have to register before voting.

Staying on the MIF tip, The Pianist – one of my highlights of the programme – is being broadcast on Radio 4 next Saturday, 20 October, from 2.30pm. More details here, or read my review-of-sorts here.

Also, something called mashup* Manchester takes place in Sale next Friday. It’s an event for those involved with ‘personal digital identity, social networking, Web 3.0 and TV 2.0′, which will probably mean diddly-squat to most of us. For the rest – or for those who just can’t get enough of networking – check out the mashup* website for more details.

I also want to mention New to Manchester, a blog by Tom. I’m embarassed to admit it’s taken me six months to discover it, but now that I have I’d say it’s one of the best new(ish) blogs I’ve read in a while – check out his guide to scamming Globe takeaway in West Didsbury, for example. Consider yourself blogrolled Tom.

And a quick mention for the ominously-titled The Leader’s Blog too. It’s written by Sir Richard Leese, Labour councillor for Crumpsall and leader of Manchester City Council. He got off to a flying start last month but has gone a little quiet lately. Hopefully the novelty didn’t wear off in little over a fortnight?