Bicycle-themed film festival in Thiruvananthapuram to promote cycling
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city is all set to host a unique film festival centred around bicycles. The International Bicycle Film Festival of Kerala (IBFFK) will be held at Lenin Balavadi from 9am to 5pm on Sunday.
Organised by Indus Cycling Embassy (ICE) in association with the Green Army of the city corporation, the fest is being held as a prelude to the Green Congress which is set to kickstart in the city under the aegis of Thiruvananthapuram city corporation on February 6 and 7 and the National Conference of Cities for Zero Waste 2020 to be held from February 15 to 17.
Prior to the inauguration of the fest, a rally by the cycle brigade of the city corporation based in 11 schools will be flagged off by Mayor K Sreekumar at the corporation office. "The idea is to bring more visibility to cycle as a vehicle that can be helpful in daily life and to encourage a transition towards adopting it as a mode of transport. The rally will have 150-200 cyclists of the brigade participating in it. The film festival is open for all. We also have plans to show more bicycle-based movies in schools every month. We were surprised by the number of cycle-themed movies made," said Prakash P Gopinath, bicycle mayor of the city and founder of ICE.
The films and documentaries are curated by documentary film maker Pandavath Baburaj who will also provide brief introductions to the movies before the screening. The selected films include ‘Breaking Away’ from USA, ‘Beijing Bicycle’ from China, Italian classic ‘Bicycle Thieves’, Malayalam movie ‘Ambili’ and Saudi Arabian movie ‘Wajda’.
The documentary, ‘Blood Road’ from USA will also be screened. It follows the journey of a girl and her riding partner as they pedal 1,200 miles along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to reach the crash site and final resting place of her father, a US Air Force pilot who was shot down over Laos some 40 years ago. Delegate registration is free and can be done through ICE website,induscyclingembassy.com.