Some people find their way into films and sometimes films find their way into people.

Acocks Green director Steve Rainbow has spent 20 years making short films like Quest For Fire, a three-minute search for the hottest curry in the world.

But it’s his experiences of working with the homeless in real life that is helping him to make waves on the silver screen with his first feature, NFA (No Fixed Abode), the story of an ordinary, loving father who wakes up with no home.

Because it leaves a lasting impression on viewers, NFA was well-received at Edinburgh and then at the MAC where it played under the talent-encouraging Departure Lounge series organised by Moseley-based Professor Roger Shannon, the former Birmingham International Film Festival director.

A homeless charity fund raiser, Steve Rainbow is not alone in the approach of using one career to propel himself into the movies.

The next Departure Lounge presentation at the MAC, on Thursday, October 25 from 8.30pm, will be Last Shop Standing – the rollercoaster story of Britain’s independent record shops.

Its Kings Heath-based director, Pip Piper, began his career as a youth worker but realised that his organisational skills would be handy for making films.

Partly financed through ‘crowd-funding’, Blue Hippo Films’ Last Shop Standing has already had a sell-out screening at the Electric Cinema this week, evidence of a renewed sense of vibrancy spreading across the city’s filmmaking landscape.

Another local filmmaker making a big impact is Electric Cinema owner Tom Lawes, whose new film The Last Projectionist – a story about the end of traditional projection combined with a delicious social history of the Electric itself – has been touring the country since June to great acclaim.

The multi-talented Lawes directed, edited, graded and sound mixed the documentary as well as composing the score in order to tell the story of now retired local projectionists like John Brockington and Phil Fawke.

It’s on their shoulders that Lawes, Piper and Rainbow and others like Steffan Aquarone (Tortoise in Love), Debbie Aston (Made in Birmingham) and Michael Baig-Clifford (Turbulence) are now carrying the city’s film heritage forward.

Roger says: “It’s all looking very positive. These producers and directors represent a new generation of challenging filmmakers who are hoping to put Birmingham back on the map from Birmingham itself.”

Steve, who went to Solihull Technical College and has a degree in art, says: “My aim now is to get NFA screened at more festivals and to try to get a short run distribution deal.” Financed by 104 Films, a company named after a city bus route by Sutton Coldfield director Justin Edgar and fellow filmmaker Alex Usborne, NFA only cost £25,000 to make, but it stars Sutton Coldfield’s own Hollywood star Patrick Baladi (The International).

Steve, who has a nine-year-old daughter, Ruby, says: “The leading character is on screen for 90 per cent of the time, so it was vital that we got the right actor.

“I knew Patrick could pull it off. Making a feature is what I’ve always wanted to do and Justin and Alex just let me get on with directing it, with Justin just turning up on the last day for some free booze!”

His two important lessons are to convince people that you know what you are talking about and to be able to do something worthwhile.

Once he’s up and running on set, Steve likes to work fast.

“If you have ‘got it’ on the first take, then that’s it,” he says.

“And if you can do your work with a smile then you will get a lot more out of people.

“I like to give people their freedom, otherwise why bother hiring actors and a director of photography if you are not going to let them do their job?

“I wanted to put unusual parts of Birmingham on screen and whatever I wanted Film Birmingham gave it to us.”

For his next trick, Steve is planning an ambitious attempt to re-work Hitchcock’s Rear Window in Fun With Caravans, about a man who has broken both legs and can only contact the outside world using computers.

“And I could do that on a shoestring budget,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “I would always find a way to make it.”

When Steve does, he’ll be following a classic piece of Birmingham film-making history. Hitchcock was given his first directing job by Michael Balcon, the city-born son of Eastern European immigrants who ended up running the Ealing Studios and helping to found BAFTA, as well as paving the way for grandson Daniel Day-Lewis to become the first non-American to win two best actor Oscars.

Proof that somewhere, over the Rainbow... stars will always shine.

Website: www.rainbowfilms.co.uk