The Third Annual Bike Shorts Film Festival arrives in Canmore next Thursday, bringing with it a bounty of brief bike bits-and-bites.
Bike Shorts, which is presented by Canmore Community Cruisers (CCC) and The Bicycle Café at Communitea Café on Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. (pay what you can), features two hours of bike-related films.
The event, created by Dustin Anderson, is a travelling film festival based in Vancouver, B.C. Gini Dalgas, a founding CCC board member, said the shorts range from 10 minutes down to three to five minutes and feature a wide range of subjects, all connected to cycling.
“They can be anything. There might be one or two mountain biking style, where people are doing amazing things on their bikes, and other ones are celebrating bikes as transportation or as a fun thing to do, or in an artistic way,” Dalgas said.
“It is cyclecentric without being sports centric.”
This year, Bike Shorts will feature two short films – Biking and Green Your Transportation – produced by drama students at Lawrence Grassi Middle School as part of the Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley program Lights, Camera, Community Connection.
Biosphere executive director Melanie Watt said the program helps students make films, with the end goal of producing films that help make a difference in the community.
Earlier films have tackled invasive plants, water conservation, pine beetles, waste reduction, worm composting and green cleaning.
Including more locally-made films is one Dalgas’ goals for future festivals.
“No matter how you ride your bike, the one place that everybody connects is they love to ride their bike and it is that wind in your hair, the freedom of getting around,” she said.
“The elemental part of it, being outdoors on your bike and moving through space, is just amazing.”
Proceeds from the Bike Shorts Canmore presentation will be split between CCC and the CAUSE Canada Maternal Health project.
Those wearing bike shorts will get the chance to win prizes.
For more information email [email protected] or call 403-609-6695.
And, for more information on CAUSE Canada’s project – including a new Bicycle Café Sierra Leone bike tour fundraiser – go to cause.ca
