Escape

8 films in this block • 62 minutes

Block Description

What’s your escape? For these folks, it’s riding their bike. Whether it’s cycling in the Lower Peninsula (“The Boardman Review: Bike Leelanau”), Napal (“RJ Ripper), Canada (“Escape”), the streets (“Tailwhip”), Africa (“A Way Forward”), your dreams (“DreamRide 3”), or our very own Dead River Community Forest (“A Sense of Place), we all need a place to let it all go. Onward!


The Films

The Boardman Review: Bike Leelanau

  • Year 2018
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 5 min
  • Director Nick Loud and Chris Loud

Filmmaker in Attendance

Bike Leelanau is advocating for building and sustaining accessible trails for all abilities while helping to build a local community focused around a love of biking

Escape

  • Year 2018
  • Country Canada
  • Runtime 8 min
  • Director Anjali Nayar

There is something gloriously incongruous — and almost incomprehensible — about a risk-averse, non-athletic, native Rwandan DJ finding the real meaning in his life by pedaling across Canada to its frozen Arctic Ocean shore in an attempt to break the record for the longest, continuous, fixed- gear bike ride. Through the course of this unlikely adventure, the protagonist, Jean-Aime Bigirimana, also finds that the truth about escaping is not as black and white as, say, his spandex silhouette against the cold Canadian snowscape.

A Way Forward

  • Year 2016
  • Country USA/Kenya
  • Runtime 6 min
  • Director Isaac & Jacob Seigel-Boettner

A Way Forward tells the story of how the bicycle empowered two young women to not only pursue their own dreams, but inspire others to do the same.

Tailwhip

  • Year 2017
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 13 min
  • Director Joris Debeij

The 14-year-old BMX rider Erik Aguilar is on track to reaching professional status in just a couple years, but in the meatime, he uses biking to keep himself out of trouble and off the streets.

DreamRide 3

  • Year 2018
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 5 min
  • Director Juicy Studios

Step into a world built on imagination and trails that can only exist in one’s dreams. Combining a Dr. Suess-inspired narrative, some of the world’s wildest natural oddities and one dream on a mountain bike, this film will take you on an adventure like no other.

Building a Sense of Place

  • Year 2018
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 3 min
  • Director Dietrich Ludwig

In the second teaser for the proposed Dead River Community Forest, we talk with Jeremiah Johnston from the Noquemenon Trail Network. NTN is one of Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy’s partnering organizations to help build trail systems within the forest. The trail systems will serve as a multi-accessible path allowing for hikers, bikers, and runners to use the path simultaneously. Jeremiah explains how trail building and land protection go hand-in-hand.

RJ Ripper

  • Year 2018
  • Country Nepal
  • Runtime 16 min
  • Director Joey Schusler

Rajesh Magar has been obsessed with bikes since he was a small child growing up in Kathmandu, Nepal. When the other kids were studying, he’d be dreaming about, designing and drawing bikes. As the son of a construction worker and housemaid, however, a bike wasn’t easy to come by. Undeterred, he built one, a clunky Frankenstein, but a mountain bike nonetheless. He started racing, and his drive and raw talent got noticed, leading to a job as a mountain bike guide and a path to professional racing. Today, Nepal’s National Champion is living proof that it pays to stick to your passion, no matter how implausible it seems.

Start the Cycle Mountain Biking Program

  • Year 2018
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 6 min
  • Director Nick Jensen

Filmmaker in Attendance

Start the Cycle is a cycling team program that introduces at risk youth to a life full of success through winter fat tire and summer mountain biking. The volunteers and mentors provide the structure for participants to achieve goals and have a sense of belonging. The goal of the program is to complete the 906 Polar Roll Fat Tire Bike Race in February and the Ore 2 Shore Epic Mountain Bike Race in August.