MOTHERLOAD - A Lesson in Making the Mundane Extraordinary
Friday, September 27th at 6:30 pm @ Retreat Farm in Brattleboro, Rt 30
Presented by VBike - [email protected] / 802-258-7013
Facebook event post - www.facebook.com/events/432646490682162/
Friday, September 27th at 6:30 pm @ Retreat Farm in Brattleboro, Rt 30
Presented by VBike - [email protected] / 802-258-7013
Facebook event post - www.facebook.com/events/432646490682162/
VBike is excited to announce the Vermont premiere of MOTHERLOAD. Released in June 2019, MOTHERLOAD is an award-winning, crowd-sourced national documentary about a mom searching for freedom & connection in a fossil fueled, digital and divided world. She then discovers how cargo bikes are helping to reshape and reframe our communities and how we get around. The film is largely a story of how we can redeem ourselves by making the mundane extraordinary.
For most of her life, filmmaker Liz Canning almost exclusively used a bike for transportation - that is until she had twins in 2008. Hauling babies via car was not only unsustainable but took the freedom and adventure out of life, and Liz felt trapped. Frustrated, Canning went on the internet to search for “family bike” and uncovered a global movement of people replacing cars with cargo bikes designed for carrying children, groceries and virtually anything a household needs to move around. She also found out about how that electric-assist bike technology - coupled with the new, innovative cargo bike designs - is a game changer in places like Vermont with hilly terrain. Cargo bikes and e-cargo bikes started showing up everywhere, like they are in Brattleboro. Canning then set out to learn more and MOTHERLOAD was born.
Early on in the project Canning ran into people like Emily Finch, a mother of six who transports all her children on a cargo bike and became a sort of celebrity featured on syndicated talk shows and news media. Emily’s moment in the media spotlight helped to spread awareness about the utility of these bicycles. Canning not only found an emerging and growing community across the country of inspired families and households, but that they were making sustainability look really fun and joyous with their cargo bikes! MOTHERLOAD asks why this is so and what it can teach us about mainstream culture.
An exciting moment in MOTHERLOAD for Vermont and Brattleboro highlights the work VBike, a Brattleboro-based nonprofit advocacy organization. One scene features colorful footage of downtown Brattleboro and captures VBike founder Dave Cohen providing a free bicycle consultation with a local family. The documentary then follows Cohen delivering an exploration of the sensory, emotional and social isolation that occurs within the automobile and the culture perpetuated by car and fossil fuel corporations. This sets the stage for Canning to expand on this theme and explore the fragmentation of our experience in a hyper-motorized and frenetically technologized society and what we can do about it.
MOTHERLOAD powerfully conveys a sense of urgency to reconsider our mobility options and the possibilities to be envisioned beyond our current paradigm that can bring engaged and active hope in an age of climate change and immense ecological disruption. The film also investigates the history of women's rights and how that issue is inextricably tied to the history of the bicycle as a form of independence and agency in the world.
Just prior to this debut showcasing of MOTHERLOAD, local residents will be joining in a Critical Mass bike ride starting from the Brattleboro Common at 5:30 and ending at the Retreat Farm for the film screening. This film premiere will also feature a stunning photography exhibit from the work of Marco Yunga Tacuri who has been chronicling the growing climate and bike activist movement in Brattleboro.
Just prior to this debut showcasing of MOTHERLOAD, local residents will be joining in a Critical Mass bike ride starting from the Brattleboro Common at 5:30 and ending at the Retreat Farm for the film screening. This film premiere will also feature a stunning photography exhibit from the work of Marco Yunga Tacuri who has been chronicling the growing climate and bike activist movement in Brattleboro.