upcoming

Epic Bicycle Film Tour

What:

Portland film director Nick Peterson and producer Mary DeFresse will screen their new feature, “Field Guide To November Days”, at 8:30pm on June 24th (doors at 8pm) at Accident Gallery.
Film Synopsis: “Field Guide to November Days”, is an almost wordless study of social isolation and miscommunication. Matt and Natalie, recently separated from each other, resume their relationship after a chance meeting. Passion clouds their perception and they soon fall back into destructive patterns. Further complicating the situation, they are each exploring ideas about their own mortality. After time, jealousy and problems with communication resurface and they separate, once again. To cope with the loss, Natalie isolates herself and experiments with a radically different place in society. Matt finds solace in his friendship with Christian, who is gay, but is confused by their companionship and begins to question his own sexual identity. The film features: Nick Peterson, Mary DeFreese, Joe Haege, and Briana Ledford. 

This film was made entirely with bikes instead of any motorized transport. Everyone working on the film biked to the set and everything (including furniture) was pulled by bike (except for one trip to the coast). See note below about promoting the film by bike tour.

About the Director: Nick Peterson and Mary DeFreese have been making films in their hometown of Portland, Oregon for 11 years. Their work has received several awards and played at festivals such as Harvard Film Archive, Rooftop Films, Ann Arbor, Minneapolis-St. Paul International, Bumbershoot and The NorthWest Film and Video Festival. 
Often characterized for their uniqueness and ambition to challenge common narrative film trends, their work has garnered critical praise from filmmakers such as James Benning and Gus Van Sant. Van Sant has said that Peterson “…is one of the best young filmmakers I have come across in a long time. His unity of vision is rare and gives me hope for the next generation of American filmmakers.”

Promoting The Film By Bike: Nick Peterson and Mary DeFresse are true DIY filmmakers and after premiering their film this June in Portland they will set out by bike to screen and promote their film in various venues from Vancouver, B.C. to San Diego, California. The tour will take them almost 5 weeks and around 1500 miles to reach the Mexican border.
Mary DeFreese writes about this unique promotional effort, “As for the tour, Nick and I made this whole film by bicycle. Cycling is a part of our daily lives and a part of our politics but it’s also just something we unashamedly love. 

We’ve known from the first day of making this film that we wanted to tour it by bicycle. Usually with film, you get into festivals and travel to those places to screen your film. We wanted to do a different approach and expose our films to people that might not necessarily go to film festivals and even screen in towns that might not get those kinds of films. We modeled our tour after a band tour, booking ourselves and handling all the press (for the most part). 

Except of course the part where we are touring by bicycle. We will be leaving by train to Vancouver, B.C. on June 9th. This is where we will start our tour, continuing all the way to Los Angeles (and eventually Mexico, just to say we did it) screening along the way. In some places (like Portland), we’ll lead bike rides of viewers around the city ending at the theater. We want our tour to be inclusive and fun, something other people could imagine doing with their own art. We will be keeping a blog that people can follow us on as well and encouraging anyone who wants to join us for legs of the ride to do so. “

When/where: