Festival of Cyclists (1971)

• 82%
• 1971
• Animation
• Byron Grush

This film appears to focus on the female body in an artistic and colorful manner through the use of superimposition and flashes of repeated scenes. The film begins with two females in the nude, chatting, smoking, and eating saltines. Other scenes include two females in the nude and in a variety of positions: slouching, standing, sitting, etc. They are displayed in many colors and patterns, purple in one scene and polka dots the next. At one point, the women appear to be colorful cutouts moving jaggedly around the screen. In this film and in Hexagrams, Byron re-uses some of the same film scenes to create original content. Festival of Cyclists was created using a film technique invented with a Bell and Howell Film 16mm camera. In this technique, a short loop of film is repeatedly printed onto the camera roll. Byron wrote and published an article in Filmmaker's Newsletter about the technique. In 1972, Festival of Cyclists was shown at the 10th Ann Arbor Film Festival.