The Filmed by Bike Annual festival came along this year and since I have been volunteering with Warmshowers (tada!) I got free passes to watch their virtual movies. The time window to watch these movies was quite short but then the movies were also mostly short films. Here are my quick notes on each of the movies that I did watch…. maybe you can look out for some of the best ones and also many of these people are on social media, so you can always follow / connect with them 🙂 Cycle joy!

Cycling Deepens our Connection with the Surroundings…

Switching Lanes, a short film about a asian woman who shifts to San Francisco. She is not able to relate to the city as it is so different from the SE Asian cities she lived in earlier. Finally, she gets a cycle, and is able to commute and explore the city. Soon she falls in love with the city. This is a sweet 6 min long film.

I can relate with the feeling, the connection that cycling helps us build with our surroundings whether it is nature or city life.

Simplicity of the Cycle

The Blind Mechanic of Iran, is about a blind Muslim whose family has to leave war torn Afghanistan when he was a child. And they relocate to Iran. Here he eventually discovers his skill to repair bicycles. The short film starts by him saying that Cycle is not a very complex machine. And bike repair can be a great job for other blind folks.

Great perspective. And I often love the simplicity of the cycle. That we can see the exact mechanics at play right in the open, no hidden boots or boxes. There is a beauty to it. While I can’t ride a gear-less bike. As I require gear support due to weak knees. But I often feel that the gear system is the only one which is somewhat complex, apart from that the entire cycle is such a open-book kind of equipment. Don’t you think? 🙂

Cycling Beyond Fitness Challenges

There are a few short films in this which showcase people with tougher fitness situations take up cycling. High Road is the story of two paracyclists – one an olympic paracyclist champion woman and other a young boy. Jenna and her Car-Free Life showcases a plus-sized woman who became a huge inspiration for many others to cycle around Portmouth.

When I started cycling around Indian cities, I realized that while I was doing this as a sport, fun, fitness activity – there were actually a large number of cyclists on the road, but, they were invisible – the local folks commuting and doing their chores on the heavy, gear-less steel cycles. And I realized, that in India, as with other countries, cycling is actually an activity that has potential to be popular across all age groups. But the inspiration to initiate this change is required.

There were many more amazing short films to watch at Filmed by Bike Virtual Fest, but I was traveling and had limited time. Plus, there have been some eventbrite related glitches in the streaming which made it tough for me watch a lot of them quickly. So, leaving you with the above thoughts.

And…..

I love watching cycling films. A while back another bike festival introduced me to Iohan Guergiev’s amazing videos. And these videos were a big help to me during the COVID lockdown.

Great to have the cycling community out in the world. Lots of love and warm wishes to all of them, let’s cycle and heal the world!