RACING TOWARDS RED HOOK is one of the highlights of the Bicycle Film Festival
Spencer Brownstone, 3 Wooster St. at Canal St.
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave. at Second St.
June 23-26
Tickets: $10 per film, Sunday pass $20 (all four programs), festival pass $40 (all programs)
www.bicyclefilmfestival.com
While New Yorkers continue their ever-present debate over the viability of bicycles and bike lanes in Manhattan, the Bicycle Film Festival rolled into town last night with a kickoff party at Santos Party House, and the festivities continue tonight with the opening of the Joyride Art Show at Spencer Brownstone, featuring bike-related imagery from such artists as Albert Maysles, Cheryl Dunn, Edwin De La Rosa, Jake Klotz, Leo Fitzpatrick, Mimi Gross, Mint and Serf, and Ryan Humphrey, followed by an after-party at Lit Lounge with Frances Rose, Unsolved Mysteries, Imaginary Friends, and DJs Dirtyfinger, Ramblinworker, and Joshua Wildman & Fancy. Screenings get under way Friday night at Anthology Film Archives, three days of film and video that involve bicycles, from Rob Luehrs’s one-minute commercial, Crazy About You, to Richard Press’s highly praised Bill Cunningham New York, from Lori Samsel’s stop-motion animated Snack Track, made with Japanese rice crackers, to Ben Lenzner’s The Backwards Rider, from Jessica Scott & Hyde Harper’s Racing Towards Red Hook, about a brakes-free race, to Spike Jonze’s Mark on Allen, in which skateboarder Mark Gonzales tries a series of tricks on Allen St. Friday night’s Program 2 will include a live performance by Richard Barone, with background video by Jonas Mekas. And on Saturday, the BFF Street Party will feature special activities and vendors, a BMX Jam, and more.
Based on a true story that writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Maborosi, After Life) read about back in 1988, Nobody Knows is a heartwarming, heartbreaking film about four extraordinary half-siblings who must fend for themselves every time their mother takes off for extended periods of time. Japanese TV and pop star YOU makes her feature-film debut as Keiko, a young woman who has four kids by way of four different men. When she’s home, she shows affection for the children, but the problem is, she’s rarely home. Instead, twelve-year-old Akira (Yagira Yuya) must take care of the shy Kyoko (Kitaura Ayu), who handles the laundry; the troublemaker Shigeru (Kimura Hiei), who can’t follow the rules; and sweet baby Yuki (Shimizu Momoko), who likes chocolates and squeaky shoes. At first, it is charming and uplifting watching how Akira handles the complicated situation — the other kids are not allowed outside because the landlord will evict them if he finds out about them, and Akira even helps teach the family, who do not attend school — but as Keiko disappears for longer periods of time, the children’s lives grow more dire by the day as food and money start running out. Kore-eda, who also edited and produced this powerful picture, has created a moving, involving film that nearly plays like a documentary, avoiding melodramatic clichés and instead wrapping the audience up in the closeted life of four terrific kids whose tragic existence will ultimately break your heart. Nobody Knows is screening at MoMA on June 23 and 24 as part of the series “In Focus: IFC Films,” which concludes with a sneak peek of Errol Morris’s Tabloid (2010) on June 24 at 8:00.