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Bicycle Film Festival Comes To Toronto

April 17, 2007 — Returning for a seventh year, the 2007 Bicycle Film Festival (BFF) is kicking off its annual tour, stopping in an unprecedented 15 cities internationally. Putting an even greater focus this year its campaign to promote a clean lifestyle — breathing cleaner air and living in a better environment — the BFF will begin its tour in New York with films at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave.) during the city’s “Bike Month” and a free, all-solar powered, outdoor rock show in conjunction with Solar One (www.solar1.org). “We are thrilled to bring the BFF back to the cities that have welcomed us for so many years, and feel fortunate that we are in the position to expand to include new audiences,” said Brendt Barbur, Bicycle Film Festival director and founder. “We hope that the BFF opens people up to using bikes as a form of alternative transportation, ultimately helping our environment and reducing air pollution. Each time we begin in a new city, I can’t help but be inspired by the growth in enthusiasm for bicycle riding.”

The days of the festival are filled with films, parades, block parties and art shows — all bike themed. Each day of the festival includes various programs grouping together like films, from mountain biking to BMX, and from fun shorts to the messenger program. The films that will be shown were hand selected from hundreds of submissions that came from over 15 countries. The film selections for 2007 came from filmmakers including the Neistat Brothers (www.neistat.com), Lucas Brunelle (www.lucasbrunelle.com) and Daniel Leeb (www.cinecycle.com), among others, as well as a feature documentary from Billy Savage that features mountain biking icon Gary Fisher titled Klunkerz (www.klunkerz.com). Savage’s Klunkerz, a documentary on the history of mountain biking from its roots in Marin County, has been said to shine a light on the sport sparking worldwide interest just as Stacy Peralta had done with his skateboarding documentary Dog Town and Z Boys. All BFF related events include free bicycle valet parking — (there has never been a stolen valet parked bike). The Bicycle Film Festival has grown so much in popularity, selling out shows in New York and San Francisco, that it has grown in 2007 to reach audiences in 15 cities:

“¢ New York (May)
“¢ Los Angeles (June)
“¢ Paris (July)
“¢ Chicago (August)
“¢ Minneapolis (August)
“¢ Toronto (August)
“¢ Portland (September)
“¢ San Francisco (September)
“¢ Vienna (October)
“¢ London (October)
“¢ Milano (October)
“¢ Roma (November)
“¢ Barcelona (November)
“¢ Tokyo (December)
“¢ Sydney (December)

In addition to the films, this year the BFF has developed partnerships with various organizations to expand the scope of the festival
including an event in July to launch the Tour de France, which begins in London and an event at Paris destination boutique Colette. The
long-awaited Bicycle Film Festival DVD compilation will finally be released during the 2007 tour as well. In 2006, over 35,000 people
attended the BFF in the United States and this year we expect to triple that number. The bicycle film festival has been credited with
pushing bicycle culture forward throughout the world and as New York has one of the richest bicycle culture zones, has therefore been
recognized as sparking cycling trends that also follow the city’s culture throughout the world.





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