It’s a great weekend for movies. SIFF Cinema is back from summer break with You, The Living, a personal favorite from SIFF 2008. Central Cinema is having a Michael Jackson sing-along tribute with videos and costumes (prize for the biggest MJ fan). The Grand Illusion is in the thick of Washington Grown, a local film festival.
These are all safe bets, but my money’s on this weekend’s Bicycle Film Festival, a touring two-day event that will be in Seattle (at the Henry) today and tomorrow. Seven programs include films spanning from feature-length documentaries like 2009′s Where Are You Go, about the Tour d’Afrique, to animated shorts like A Bicycle Trip, an eerie-beautiful CGI number about acid tripping on a bicycle.
My favorite film in BFF is local: Webster Crowell’s Parasol, which played at last year’s NWFF Bike-In, is a mind-blowing, stop-motion animation film about falling in love on bicycles. It gets its title from its materials—the entire story is drawn, frame by frame, onto open parasols. Nine minutes mean several thousand parasols, each its own work of art. (You may have seen these on display in the old Vivace space when it was awaiting demolition, as part of a public art project.) This little film has flickered and fluttered its way to many honors at festivals around the country, and you shouldn’t miss it at this one.
If short films aren’t your thing, or you don’t like animation, BFF probably still has something for you. There’s a program about racing, one about BMX, two feature documentaries about different tours, and even a set of “Urban Bike Shorts.”
This is, of course, not just a movie event: It’s also a bike event. On Saturday, there will be a two-person team race at 3pm ($10 registration at the Henry Art Gallery at 2:30), and both nights of the festival will be capped off by after parties at Flowers. You can attend the parties and the race without attending screenings, but I recommend doing both.
All in all, the Bicycle Film Festival promises to be a great time. Tickets are $10 per program, all screenings at the Henry. Check out the Bicycle Film Festival website for more information.
Today’s FilmNerd brought to you by the Northwest Film Forum:
