The International Cycling Film Festival (, ) is an independent, not-for-profit film festival held annually in Germany, in Poland, in Kosovo and in the Netherlands. Its mission is to strengthen international cooperation in the areas of art film and bicycle culture. The festival promotes interaction between movie makers and cyclists from all over the world. It has screened more than 350 short movies from more than 30 countries since its debut in 2006. Each year around 20 films compete for the award Goldene Kurbel and the awards of the audience. The Neistat Brothers, Flóra Anna Buda, Michaël Dudok de Wit, Andrea Dorfman, Tomer Shushan, Lucas Brunelle, Steven Subotnick, Nash Edgerton, M. A. Numminen and other filmmakers and artists contributed to the ICFF.
The most recent, 20th International Cycling Film Festival ran for three days and screened a total of 42 short and feature-length films for an audience of approximately 800 people. The festival's main program and the Golden Crank competition featured 12 short films from 6 countries.
History
Early years
The International Cycling Film Festival was established in December 2005 in Bochum by the chairman of the cycling club Team Hollandse Frietjes – non-professional cycling, Gernot Mühge. The festival launched in September 2006 under the name "International Cycling Video Festival" (). Featured were 17 films from the US, Scotland, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The first three festivals took place at “Goldkante”, a club for the local art scene and social-cultural events in Bochum. During these years the festival was arranged as a three-days festival, containing two film evenings at the first two days and ending with a time trial for both cyclists and movie makers at the third day. The laudatory for the Goldene Kurbel in these years was Frank Hörner, director of the Theater Kohlenpott, which is a children and youth theatre in the Flottmann-Hallen, Herne. He facilitated the transfer of the ICFF from Bochum to nearby Herne.
Flottmann-Hallen years
Since a continuous growth by an increasing number of participants and a rising variety and quality of film contributionsFechner, Carola: Wir lagen am Boden. In: Tour-Magazin, Vol. 1/2008 the festival was renamed "International Cycling Film Festival” 2009. Also the festival's venue “Goldkante” became too small for the audience over the years. Based on the existing cooperation to the Theater Kohlenpott the makers of the festival decided to move the 4th International Cycling Film Festival to Herne 2009. From then until now the festival takes place at the Flottmann-Hallen, a former machine-tool factory, which was transformed into a cultural centre for Herne following its closure in 1983. During the years 2010 to 2012 the ICFF was included in the “VVicycle- Herne Film and Bicycle Days”, an organizational umbrella for different film festivals taking place in the Flottmann-Hallen.Neumann, Henrik: Bei Video-Festivals in Herne dreht sich alles ums Rad, in: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, October 5, 2009Pardey, Hans-Heinrich: Fahrradkultur mit Fritten, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, October 31, 2010
“The fantastic bicycle film" () was the particular motto of the 6th International Cycling Film Festival. The motto was repeated as "The fantastic bicycle film reloaded" during the 8th ICFF 2013. These two specific programs included anime, animation and auteur films from Argentina, Austria, Greece, Germany, Japan, Italy, Poland and Portugal.
Polish-German period of the ICFF
In Summer 2011, during a meeting on future cooperation among bicycle activists in the Ruhr district held in the bike kitchen in Dortmund, Aleksander Kopia, founder of the Silesian Bicycle Initiative (), Poland met people from the ICFF. From that point the Polish initiative is a partner of the ICFF. First guest performances in Poland occurred in the Silesian Voivodeship in Katowice and in Częstochowa in summer 2012. This gave rise to the idea of setting up a second ICFF in Poland based on equal partnership between the Polish and German makers of the ICFF. So 2013 the program of the festival was shown simultaneously in Herne and Częstochowa. Furthermore, a new prize for bicycle-related films was created. The award was named Trzy złote szprychy () and is the audience award of the festival's Polish edition. In 2014, the Polish edition of the ICFF moved from Częstochowa to Kraków. Since that time the ICFF is under the patronage of the German Consulate General in Kraków. The Polish festival edition is supported by the Goethe-Institut, a German cultural association encouraging international cultural exchange.
A Dutch-Polish-German film festival since 2015
In 2014 the Dutch movie maker Erwin Zantinga from Groningen became a new member of the ICFF board after he presented his film “Two wheels and a hayfork” at the 9th ICFF in Herne personally. Due to this new cooperation between Dutch, Polish and German festival makers Groningen became an additional venue off the ICFF. In the same time the makers of the ICFF started collaboration with the party Alliance '90/The Greens of the municipality of Wiesbaden. As a result, the German Film Heritage Foundation Murnau Stiftung was found as the fifth fixed venue of the ICFF. It is now a trinational festival with board members from and fixed venues in Poland, the Netherlands and Germany.
With its further expansion also the approach of the festival was more and more outlined. Nowadays its mission is two-fold. First, the ICFF focuses on the bicycle as a subject of cinematic art. This part of the festival is represented by movie makers like Werther Germondari, Michaël Dudok de Wit, Jörn Staeger, or Michael Klöfkorn, who contributed to the festival. Second, the ICFF screens films as a means of expression in the fast growing bicycle culture. It is a forum for movie makers from the bicycle community like Lucas Brunelle or Casey Neistat.
Award Goldene Kurbel
The Goldene Kurbel () is the highest prize awarded to the best film in the festival, counting as The Oscar for bicycle films. It is the oldest film prize for bicycle-related films. The award is chosen by a jury of local film, bicycle and art experts who are also in charge for the official selection of the festival program. The Goldene Kurbel consists of a golden right-side crank arm of a bicycle on the top of a wooden base. The crank stands as a symbol for the bicycle and refers also to the crank of early hand-cranked film cameras.
Awardees
Polish-German movie maker Nena Adelajda Olczak wins the Goldenen Kurbel of the 16th ICFF in 2021 for Welcome to Polotubbieland. Things are sporty in Polotubbieland: dressed in Polish national colours, its inhabitants skilfully do cartwheels or ride around on the road bike. In contrast to the perfect world of fitness on the visual level, the film reveals on the soundtrack the abysses of contemporary Polish cultural politics, its radical break with artistic freedom and freedom of opinion in the name of the nation state. Populism leaves no room for the other, the foreign. "Dirty migrants go home" chant right-wing polotubbie artists in the bitter ending of the touching experimental film.
The Goldene Kurbel of the 13th ICFF was given to Tigersprung (Tiger leap), a film by Boaz Kaizman, Peter Rosenthal and Stefan Seibert about Albert Richter, 1932 amateur world champion on the track, murdered in 1940 by the German secret police Gestapo. At the center of the film is his Jewish manager, the Cologne-based Ernst Berliner, who, fleeing from the Nazis, survives the Nazi era in the Netherlands. He tries to prosecute the case in the 1960s, but the German judiciary refuses to open it. Also his former fellows in Cologne refuse him, "the disturbance”. Ernst Berliner travels home to the US with the intention to never return to Germany. “'Tigersprung' reminds us of the confrontation with Nazi sports history," so festival maker Gernot Mühge in his laudatory speech: "The film refers to what Ralph Giordano has called the second guilt of the Germans - the numerous gaps and failures in the efforts to confront the Nazi history".
Little Girl, an animation from Steven Subotnick, USA, was awarded with the Goldene Kurbel of the 12th ICFF. The short film is about a little girl, riding her bike in a bad mood. She puts fire to houses by ringing her bell. A weird hare tries to extinguish the flames, but finally the girl overwhelmed and dominated him. "Little Girl" is an ambiguous film in a gloomy atmosphere, and it does provide only few guidance to the viewer. The short plays artfully with the levels of imagination, symbols and reality, so the Jury Commission of the 12th ICFF.
The Goldene Kurbel of the 11th ICFF was given to Cycologic, a documentary about the power of women on bikes in Uganda, directed by Emilia Stålhammar, Veronica Pålsson and Elsa Lövdin, Sweden. The film was shot in Kampala, Uganda, in an absurd mess of mini vans and lorries; in this particular traffic the bicycle appears as a statement of social justice, equity and quality of life (not only) for African people. The film focusses on the political work of Amanda Ngabirano and other women for the creation of car free zones and bike lanes as well their promotion of women in cycling: “Seeing a woman riding a bicycle should not be seen as a sign of courage and fearlessness, but rather a sign of safe streets; and that should be the focus of the planning authorities”, so Amanda.
The winner of the 10th ICFF in 2015/2016 was Wytse Koetse for his film De Benen van Amsterdam, a portrait of Frans van der Meer, Amsterdam's most authentic bicycle repairmen. The film demonstrates that bicycles are the legs of Amsterdam, and by fixing bicycles Frans keeps the city running. Wytse Koetse's touching documentary shows Frans’ 90 years old workshop transforming the big city of Amsterdam into a village, where people need their bikes fixed for their daily life, they meet and provide mutual support.
2014 the Goldene Kurbel was given to The Bell from Pijus Mickus, Lithuania. The Bell is a film about a girl's dream of a cycle of her own, fulfilled by her loving parents. Since the bell does not ring the young owner starts her first ride to let the bell repaired. But the bike ride through the Lithuanian landscape appears difficult; the bicycle falls apart into pieces. Pijus Mickus' short shows powerfully expressive performance dance, with Indrė Pivoraitė and her bicycle as a congenial dance partner in the leading roles.
The prize for the best film 2013 was given to Three-Legged Horses from Felipe Bustos Sierra, Edinburgh, Scotland. His short shows an evening in the live of a professional cycle rickshaw driver, the friendly contacts with passersby, street musicians, colleagues, but also by the demanding fight against gravity, physical pain and nasty passengers. Referring to this contrast the film ends in a big brass party including the whole nightlife of Edinburgh. Three-Legged Horses shows the bright and dark site of professional bicycle driving, the fascination of free urban life, the solidarity among a modern precariat on the one hand, and on the other hand the vulnerability and toughness of this particular work life. The film won both Goldene Kurbel and audience award of the 8th ICFF.
Father and Daughter, a Dutch animation from Michaël Dudok de Wit was the Goldene Kurbel awardee in 2012. The metaphorical and touching film tells the story of a young girl, beginning with the goodbye of her father who leaves in a small boat. Over and over the girl took the bike to come back to the point where he left. This scene recurs for several stages of her life, i.e. as young woman cycling with her girlfriends, with her husband and children, as an elder woman, yet within her there is always a deep longing for her father. The compelling film won the audience award of the ICFF 2012, too.