10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Films to celebrate all forms of cycling
Isobel Ewing (left) and Georgia Merton during their cycling journey along the Karakoram Highway between northern Pakistan and China. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
The Big Bike Film Night is back this month for its 11th year to celebrate cycling in all its glorious shapes and forms.
The films will be shown across New Zealand, with a showing at the Wānaka Community Hub planned for May 15 and 16.
The night is set to feature a two and a-half-hour programme that has been proclaimed as "a feast of short films devised to delight the two-wheel devotee".
With its humble beginnings in 2015, the film night is now a much-anticipated film festival that brings a love of cycling to cinemas, presenting an array of New Zealand and international movies.
The films are specifically selected by Taupō-based curator Brett Cotter.
"Each year I set out with just one goal — to bring together the best short cycling films from around the world for our audiences, celebrating the fun, the adventure, and inspiration that bikes enable," Mr Cotter said.
The 2025 collection contains eight diverse films, some taking place in New Zealand's backyard and others in exotic places all over the world such as northern Pakistan and the suburban streets of Santa Barbara in the United States.
The film night will also feature Inshallah, a short film created by former Wānaka residents Georgia Merton and Isobel Ewing in northern Pakistan.
The pair created the film as they rode their bikes on the Karakoram Highway between northern Pakistan and China.
The result promises to celebrate cycling while removing preconceptions in other parts of the world.
Mr Cotter added that the festival's goal was to highlight the power of power of both storytelling and something as simple as a bike ride.
"It's a real honour connecting communities with stories that captivate us, move us, and, most importantly of all, inspire us to get out and ride," Mr Cotter said.
— APL
