Film Festival Touts Bikes

The Boston Bike Film Festival, which featured 14 non-fiction films that celebrate cycling culture, attracted approximately 200 people to the Brattle Theatre this weekend.

The festival, which also included a silent auction, was organized by Cat M. Bryant, who started the event in 2005 as a means to raise awareness about cycling. Profits from the event will be donated to local cycling advocacy groups such as Hub on Wheels and MassBike.

“We’re trying to attract a lot of attention to biking and make people think of it less as spandex-clad speedsters and more as a way to get around,” said David M. Watson, executive director for MassBike.

“Some of the big issues of our time—economic issues, environmental issues, social issues and health issues—can be impacted by cycling,” he said.

MassBike, which played a pivotal role in publicizing the festival, also supplied volunteers to staff the silent auction and serve food at the event.

The program, which screened over Friday and Saturday nights, consisted mostly of documentaries but also included one rap video. The selections had been submitted online by independent directors.

“They’re sort of low-budget, avant-garde films,” said Everett Briggs, a cyclist who attended the event for the first time last year.

Several directors whose work was featured in the festival were present to introduce their films in person.

John S. Allen, the director of “Grand Street,” a short film that shows bicyclists riding down the controversial Grand Street bicycle lane in New York City, which separates cyclists from traffic with a row of parked cars. The film was shot in one take, using cameras in front of and behind the two cyclists.

“The purpose I had in shooting was to be analytical. It is helpful for us in Boston to look at how things are done in other cities,” Allen said.

In addition to showcasing films about cycling, the festival also serves as a social event for bike enthusiasts in the local area.

“I think of it as a way to get the Boston bike community together again as the season winds down,” said Ellen Gugel, a board member of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition who volunteered at the festival.

“There’s a really active cycling community in Boston that has grown over the past years,” said Randy A. Stern, a festival attendee who is also an employee of the Harvard University Library. “This festival tends to attract the activists, but the event really engenders community [among all cyclists].”