

#Motherload documentary canning movie
Thus it made perfect sense to name the movie Motherload, and to frame the issue through a series of personal stories – Canning’s own story, and the story of many other mothers who celebrate their new-found freedom to feel wind, sun and rain along with their children. Kaytea Petro of Yuba Bicycles – by then the largest seller of cargo bikes in the US – told Canning that “Seventy-five percent of our market are women.” Cargo bikes, and cargo trailers pulled by bikes, became popular with tradespeople, mobile catering services, and courier services.īut one type of cargo bike user became an increasingly important demographic: mothers with young families. In the last 10 years the cargo bike movement has grown exponentially in North America. She shows us how cargo bikes developed in Central America, West Africa, Australia and the Netherlands. Canning speaks with mountain bike design legend and historian Joe Breeze, and Xtracycle founder Ross Evans. This early research pays great dividends in the movie. who were designing or importing cargo bikes. When I first became aware of the project in 2011 the working title was “Revolutions Per Minute: Cargo Bikes in the U.S.” A few years later the title had morphed to “Less Car More Go.” All along Canning was learning about the many types of cargo bikes, the people around the world who were building them and using them, and the first individuals and companies in the U.S. The movie was produced through a crowd-sourcing model, with people around the world contributing stories, pictures, video clips and funds. Motherload features Canning’s own story and the story of many other families, but the focus and the movie’s name developed several years into the project. (Education and library licensing available here and a DVD edition is here.) Revolutions Per Minute
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The feature-length documentary hit the festival circuit in 2019, and in 2020 it was released for on-demand rentals and purchase on Vimeo. That’s the backstory of the deeply inspiring film Motherload. And she remembers rediscovering routine, daily joy with her children when she learned about cargo bikes and she escaped the cage of her car.
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She remembers when that thrill disappeared under the obligations of adulthood and motherhood, when the sun and wind receded behind the sealed windows of a car, when exploring the world meant negotiating traffic jams in frustration. Liz Canning remembers that everyday thrill of childhood. “Do you remember when your central purpose was to explore this world with your body? The sun and the wind, your legs, your breath, the water and dirt? This is how we understood the environment, and our place in it, and what it meant to be alive.” DecemBart Hawkins Kreps A review of Motherload Also published on Resilience
