New additions:
Cyril Fernandez, an animator from the production team responsible for critics’ favourite ‘Belleville Rendez-vous’, will provide a special introduction to the screening of the popular animated feature - the organisers have just announced.

We are absolutely delighted that Cyril has agreed to visit the festival.

Andy Salkeld Festival Organiser

And two short films featuring mass cycling on the streets of New York have also been announced as late additions to the festival’s already brimming programme.

‘The Warriors: The Bike Ride’ (Teamspider Productions, 2004) is a short urban adventure following 800 riders speeding across the Big Apple in a tongue-in-cheek recreation of Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic.

And ‘Bike Gangs of New York’ – Cheryl Mann’s 2004 awarding winning short – features a wildly diverse mass of cyclists taking to the streets of New York.

Made in Leicester:
To Russia With Love(Mission Impossible)

Fab skate park! a still from To Russia With Love

A special film premiere to be screened at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Leicester on Sat May 22 at 4.45pm.

This is the opening film the bike film festival. The film directed and produced by Stewart Charles and Dino Finlay, who are both locals, took 16 bmx ers and skaters on a rock star tour bus 10,000 miles across Eastern Europe. The mission was to skate and bmx in the former USSR - never been done in this way before, but it was not achieved.

It’s fantastic that we can showcase local, home-grown talent alongside the best of the New York Bicycle Film Festival.

Andy Salkeld Festival Organiser

Dino Finlay organised the trip, "but when we arrived at the Belarus border we were held there for 5 hours before returning our passports and sending us back to Poland, the reason is simple...buracracy".

This film is Dino's brainchild. He spent a year and a personal fortune on it. It is a speacially edited, fast cut, 32 minute movie featuring some uk pro's and the best of our very own Leicester cream.

In addition to the film screening at the festival there will be a half pipe ramp with bmx and skate demo's outside all day on the piazza.

Bike Shorts film competition launched:
"We’re also launching the first regional ‘Bike Shorts’ film competition – with support from our New York counterparts – and hope that next year we’ll be sending East Midlands films back over the Atlantic for screenings in Manhattan."

Main Programme: see the Cycle Festival website. Screenings include 'New York Cycle Shorts', a collection of short films from the New York Bicycle Film Festival.