23 May,2017 12:04 PM IST | Mumbai | Krutika Behrawala
Starring a visually impaired adventurer who tandem cycled to Khardung La to thrill seekers on BMX bikes, seven short films featuring bicycles play at Mumbai's first cycling film fest
Gagan Grover and Divyanshu Ganatra in a still from Roads Unseen
In A teaser of the documentary, Roads Unseen, a drone camera offers a bird's eye view of two riders on a tandem bicycle trying to navigate their way through a herd of sheep that crowds their narrow path in the mighty Himalayas. The lens zooms in on Divyanshu Ganatra, a visually impaired individual who is enchanted by the beauty of the rugged terrain, as he quotes a line from The Little Prince, 'What is essential is invisible to the eye'.
A BMX biker in The Last Ride
Last August, Ganatra, who runs the Pune-based non-profit, Adventures Beyond Barriers, embarked on a tandem cycling expedition with sighted co-rider Gagan Grover. Over eight days, the duo covered 550km from Manali-battling low oxygen levels and narrow, rocky paths carved into the mountains - to reach Khardung La, the world's highest motorable road located 18,380 feet above sea level in Ladakh. As the first pair of visually impaired and sighted adventure buffs to complete this mission in India, their expedition is packed in the four-minute documentary. This, along with seven other short films centred around cycling, will be screened at Mumbai's first cycling film fest, Do Pahiya Film Festival, this weekend.
Prashant Nanaware
"Over the last few years, cycling has become a popular means of travel. People explore different routes, go with groups and embark on solo rides too. However, there are very few films on cycling that are available online. The idea of the festival is to document these journeys. So, we invited adventure enthusiasts to edit the footage and photographs that they have collected on cycling and present them as short films," says Prashant Nanaware, an avid cyclist and media professional, who is one of the four co-founders of the festival.
The team invited submissions from across the country and has received 10 entries so far, largely from Mumbai, Pune and Nashik. From these, they will curate a list of seven most appealing shorts that will be screened at the festival. Each film is between three and 11 minutes in duration. "The criteria for submission were the duration and the accessibility of the films. They should not be available on YouTube. We have received interesting entries. One is about a group that cycles to Mahabaleshwar, and The Last Ride is about a community that rides BMX, the freestyle short bikes," he adds. After each screening, the guests will also get to interact with respective filmmakers to learn about the behind-the-scenes process. The team plans to make the festival a bi-annual event.
