The Cycle of Life

When: Sept. 13–15  
Where: Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 SE Church St., Mpls.

Festivals, by definition, are periods of celebration; some just happen to be more celebratory than others. Such is the case with the Bicycle Film Festival. Yes, it celebrates bicycles through film, but it also helps build and celebrate a community of two-wheel enthusiasts.

The festival, in its seventh year, started in New York and now reaches sixteen cities, from San Francisco to Barcelona to Tokyo. Its second year in Minneapolis includes three days of films, parties, and a visual arts show. Screenings, held at the Bell Museum Auditorium, are dominated by short- and feature-length documentaries on bike-related subjects—from messengers and bicycle-clown brigades to leading figures of the cycling world—along with cycle-centric fiction. Most of the films are made specially for the festival, says publicist Jill Meisner.

This year, there’s also a local twist. A number of filmmakers are creating work about the Stupor Bowl, the legendary Twin Cities race that brought 200 bike messengers out on a subzero day last February.

It’s the crowd—2,500 strong in 2006 with an additional 1,000 expected this year—that propels the Bicycle Film Festival beyond mere movies. Look at the ticket lines, and you’d think you were watching a social gathering. Attendees ride en masse from one event to another, and there’s an evening party at One on One Bicycle Studio in downtown Minneapolis. You might say the festival has a spirit. “It is a little hard to talk about,” says local coordinator Carl Atkinson. “It’s intangible. It’s just this great feeling—and there’s an element of mischief to it.”

You don’t need to be a hard-core cyclist to attend, however. “We want everyone,” Atkinson says. “I hope people who have never ridden in the city show up.” And though she says she doesn’t want the festival to be preachy, Atkinson is clear that choosing a bike over a car has had an amazing impact on the quality of her life. “When you have your face in the air instead of a box,” she says, “life is so much better.”