Hoima Bicycle wins Best Documentary Short!

Somehow, my documentary, Hoima Bicycle,  won Best Documentary Short at the Northwest Projections Film Festival 2009.  It was up against three other very interesting and quite different docs.  Sonic Healing, Hope Art, and The Best Medicine.

Thanks to:

Thanks to Wilson Large and everyone who organized the festival and gave us an opportunity to show our work.  Thanks to Mark Hardin, who without his presence and camera work, the documentary wouldn't have been possible.  Thanks to my mom, Shirley Morris who planned, scheduled and prepared for the trip to Uganda.  Without her, the whole project wouldn't have been possible.  And thanks to my wife Karen, who was my assistant editor by watching earlier versions and suggesting changes.  She also tolerated me working through the summer, unpaid, editing the movie for hours and hours.

Thanks to Western Washington for supporting the project with grants.  And thanks to the members of First Presbyterian church for supporting the project through funds and prayer.

What's Next?

I'm considering submitting the movie to other festivals with the intention of raising awareness of the Ugandan boda-boda and increasing support for the next stage of the project.  I also realized however, that I will need to re-record all of my narration because of a low buzzing that you can hear when shown in a real theatre with a real sound system.  I guess using a cheap PC microphone (that I found in the closet) connected to my laptop didn't work.

What's Next with the Bicycle Project?

Tristan Allen is working in Jinja, Uganda right now with a bicycle NGO and has found bicycle parts that are available and could be used on the next version.  He has also written a grant proposal for creating a small fabrication shop for building a short-run of 15 bicycles.  To make that happen, he will need to raise about $2000 to cover materials, tools, and labor.  This will be done through BSPW "Bicycle Sponsorship Project & Workshop", a Non-Governmental Organisation.  If you would like to help, I will be collecting contributions.

Parallel to this, we will be approaching large bicycle manufacturers about licensing the design.  This would be one way to make the bicycle in large quantities and achieve the low cost target of $80 USD.  I'm stilling working on the design update, and will post a drawing soon.  But I also have to prepare for a presentation at the IDSA Western District conference in Santa Monica this weekend.  And we have NASAD visiting next week for a re-accreditation visit. Yikes!