An evening at the Bicycle Film Festival
Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Josh in Bike industry, New Media, Personal
As of last night, I have broken my unintentional streak of missing the Bicycle Film Festival. The quick history is that the festival started 9 years ago in New York and now plays in 39 cities around the world between May and December. Founder Brendt Barbur and Friends try to select films that cover the breadth of the bicycle universe, although this year’s lineup included a lot of MASH-esque track bike stuff and no road racing or mountain biking (although Road to Roubaix and Klunkerz have shown at previous BFFs) Over the course of a Saturday evening, I watched more than a dozen films ranging from 1 to 75 minutes (programs 6 and 7).
Among these, the most significant undertaking was the feature-length I Love My Bicycle: The Story of FBM Bikes (trailer below). It’s a documentary charting the mayhem surrounding the BMX brand’s history mainly through interviews with founder Steve Crandall, other guys who were there from the beginning, and cameos by a couple of Big Names (Dave Mirra and Mat Hoffman). The contest footage and old videos of dudes setting stuff on fire were pretty solid but the most interesting part for me was hearing the FBM guys talk about why the make all their frames and parts in-house. Tighter quality control, faster prototyping, bringing new products to market more quickly, etc. are all of the same benefits that you’d hear from Zipp, a company at the opposite end of the bicycle industry spectrum in terms of corporate culture and technology.
Of all the shorts, I most impressed by Made In Queens, a 10-minute documentary about Trinidadian kids rigging absolutely enormous speakers to their bikes. With MTV’s backing, directors Joe Stevens and Nicolas Randall had the resources to create the slickest video of the evening. The production quality, the visuals, the sound, the music (featuring Queensbridge’s finest) – it was all on point. The filmmakers did a great job of getting the kids in the film to open up and share their stories in a really personal way.
The Scraper Bike King (aka Bay-be Champ) wasn’t so much sharing his story as performing – and he killed it. The kid is a born showman and he knows how to give his audience what they want. He even talked about how scraper bikes are “eco-friendly,” which isn’t really a big thing in East Oakland. Regardless, I love the scraper bike movement and I represent The Town.
Of the track bike/messenger/alleycat stuff, Safari London was my favorite. It’s just 4 minutes of time-lapse footage of a guy riding through London at night on a track bike. The focus of the piece was on immersion in the ride and the environment of the city rather than doing tricks and bombing traffic, which was a nice change of pace. It felt a little like a car commercial though.
I’m bummed that I had to leave early and missed Anima d’Acciaio from Cinecycle. And I really wish I could have seen Brian Vernor’s new movie, Where Are You Go. Both trailers look excellent.
More thoughts on the BFF coming within the next few days. Here’s the trailer for the FBM movie:
and some pre-show pics:
