Pedal Powered Movie Magic in Mexico

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Claudia gets kids to take turns generating electricity on the Haul-a-Day

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Filmmaker, producer, and educator Claudia G. Covarrubias heads up the team of animators, cultural promoters, and impassioned volunteers behind this brilliant project. As the President of an organization called Cine Bajo El Cielo, Claudia’s mission is to bring the joys of creating and watching cinema to underserved communities across Mexico. “We believe in film as a social change tool, we want to empower communities to create and share their local stories, art, ideology and culture. We realized that we have a lot to learn from them. We decided to focus on children because they express directly without hesitation what they think and what they feel. It is important to strengthen their creativity and develop new skills in film art.  We are also committed to raising awareness about environmental issues that effect local communities. We use films made at our workshops to inspire alternatives as we face global warming, water supply problems, and others issues.” 

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Ciclocinema is a new collaboration between Cine Bajo El Cielo and an animation studio called Animatitlán. While this project is a new one, for Claudia the practice of using Haul-a-Days to generate electricity is not. Cine Bajo El Cielo has been using Haul-a-Days to power community film watching for over three years: “We found it useful in the Mexican context since there are many places without, or with limited, electricity.  The first time we made an outdoor screening people reacted with enthusiasm and were very curious of how the system worked.”

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With the convergence of education, community engagement, filmmaking, and environmentalism, the Ciclocinema project is, in a word, magic. Take for instance the film made with the children of Guelaguichi- the kids wanted to tell the true story of how their village saved a whale that washed up on the beach. After meticulously crafting all of the props and characters out of reused materials, the children patiently moved each piece through hundreds of frames to bring the story to life. With the help of volunteers, the 20 children also recorded all of the narration for the short film. And at the end of the week long workshop the community was invited to screen the film while the kids pedaled to power the projector. The joy of the children in sharing their accomplishment brought Claudia and her team to tears:

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The children of Guelaguichi brainstorming their animation

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Some really great creatures made from old bottles and pipe cleaners

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Using an iPad attached to a platform the students shoot a frame of animation

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Pedaling to generate electricity for the screening

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Opening night! Everyone’s families and friends pour out to watch the short film

You can see some of the films on their website here:

Watch Films by Pedal Power from Claudia G. Covarrubias on Vimeo.

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So far the Ciclocinema project has worked with 2 groups of children to produce animations, they will be visiting 8 more communities to make a total of 10 animated shorts. At the end of the project Claudia and her team will release all 10 shorts together as a film. Cine Bajo El Cielo’s passionate work is funded through a mix of government grants and private donations. The Ciclocinema project is currently looking for additional funding to be able to leave the iPads and other movie making equipment with the communities they visit. You can help empower impoverished children in Oaxaca by making a donation of any size to the Ciclocinema Project via PayPal: clacovash@gmail.com

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The Ciclocinema team is Carolina Gomez, Vladimir C Roshdestvensky, David Lavin, Carolina Flor, Juan Camilo Escobar, Irene Heras, Laura Suarez, Diego Suarez and Claudia G. Covarrubias. To learn more about the team and their project visit their Facebook page, be sure to give them a thumbs up while you’re there! To learn more about the Haul-a-Day, the bike powering this great project, visit the Haul-a-Day page. Also, if you’re interested in building a pedal powered generator for your bike check out this tutorial.

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