DAVE-BANGERT

Bangert: Friends #LiveLikeManny, make ‘Bikelantis’ documentary dream come true

Four years after Manny Cervantes’ mysterious death, friends finished the documentary he spent years shooting. ‘Bikelantis’ debuts in Lafayette Friday

Dave Bangert
Journal & Courier
Manny Cervantes spent two years cycling the country in search of stories for "Bikelantis," a documentary about cycling culture. Friends and family have finished the documentary four years after Cervantes died in a fire in 2014.
  • For 'Bikelantis' screening details and other events, scroll down

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – When Manny Cervantes died in 2014 in a mysterious fire in a former central Illinois high school, the West Lafayette cyclist had two years’ worth of traveling the country and cities by bike, hard drives full of video and a vision for a feature-length documentary he shared freely.

“It was no secret what Manny had in mind,” said Luis Eduardo Villamizar, one of Cervantes’ friends and film producer living in Florida. “Picking up ‘Bikelantis’ and telling the dream Manny had, all without Manny still here, that was something some of us – his friends and family and everyone else – decided we were going to try to do.”

“Bikelantis,” in Cervantes’ original concept, was a story about how cycling culture was changing communities across the country, including in Greater Lafayette, as he explored more than 20 cities looking for a sort of bicycle utopia.

Friends say Cervantes – a 35-year-old North Montgomery High School and Indiana University grad – was months away from putting the documentary together. He’d already started some of the production work with Villamizar before officials in Farmington, Illinois, found his body in a burned-out high school. He’d last been seen at the Summer Camp Music Festival near there. The circumstances of his death remain unsolved.

Villamizar spent the past four years finishing “Bikelantis,” which debuts Friday at Lafayette’s Carnahan Hall, during a weekend of events devoted to bikes and a cyclist who inspired a #LiveLikeManny mindset among those who knew him.

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“We’ve been waiting for this for such a long time,” said Cynthia Vinasco, one of Cervantes’ sisters who lives near Atlanta. Cervantes’ extended family is coming to Lafayette and will be at Carnahan Hall Friday night.

The movie poster for the documentary "Bikelantis."

“I haven’t seen the whole thing, yet,” Vinasco said. “So, I’m going to watch it with everyone else. I’m not sure how we’ll all react. But I’m so glad this day is here.”

From his home in Florida, Villamizar talked about what it took to get “Bikelantis” to the screen.

Question: How are things this week, as you get ready to show “Bikelantis” for the first time?

Luis Eduardo Villamizar: It's been, I don't know, a good stress. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think I’m just really anxious for Friday to get here and just start the whole event and get everybody to see it. It's a very emotional moment.

Question: Tell me the story about how you picked up the pieces of Manny’s story.

Villamizar: I met Manny through his sister, Cynthia, and his brother-in-law, her husband. They would always have parties and Christmas and invite us, so I met Manny during one of those events.

After he finished his first ride, which was from Boston to Atlanta, he was telling me, "I'm having this idea along this ride of putting this documentary together," and all that. I was working on another film, myself. I was like, "Well, if you ever need help, I can help you out, and you can help me out."

It was about two years that he rode around the country, filming and interviewing people and just taking footage. When he came to Atlanta (where I lived at the time), he was with me for a few weeks. We shot some B-roll footage, did some interviews, and then we started going through everything that he had accumulated up to this point and just formulating some ideas – kind of a structure, a storyline. We talked about everything from music to certain interviews and his idea for the whole thing.

After a few weeks, he went to go work on (the Summer Camp) music festival – one of those three-day festivals out in the middle of a field somewhere in Illinois. … After that was when everything happened to Manny. That was a rough summer.

Question: Then you stepped in on “Bikelantis.” How many hours of footage did he leave?

Manny Cervantes spent two years cycling the country in search of stories for "Bikelantis," a documentary about cycling culture. Friends and family have finished the documentary four years after Cervantes died in a fire in 2014.

Villamizar: Manny was already known for not just being on a bike, but also filming and taking pictures all the time. That was, like, his two main things, right?

It was about, I want to say, four (hard) drives, at least – those portable drives that have a terabyte of footage. So some of it was a mixture of old stuff that he had done on projects, pictures. He worked on everything from websites to music videos to the short films. All that stuff, and then there were at least two, maybe three drives that were full of just “Bikelantis”-type of video and photographs and documents.

Question: In layman's terms, how many hours of video are we talking here? Hundreds? Thousands?

Villamizar: Probably. I don't know, for sure. … When I got everything back after Manny died, I just kind of continued from where we had left off, going through the footage and logging it. That took me, I want to say, about two to three months.

Question: Just to go through it? Just to get started?

Villamizar: You open a folder, and you got hundreds of pictures and videos to go through. You open another folder, and then it opens into other folders, and it just kind of spirals. That's where the emotional part was – hearing his voice again and the laughter. Sometimes you have (him talking about) the struggles on the road, where you're by yourself or struggling to get from one place to another or those types of things. … That's a little tough to start going through. After a while you just keep pushing through it, but it was a lot of footage to go through.

Question: Did you find yourself just stalling out, reminiscing and just wanting to look at the same thing over and over again?

Villamizar: Yeah. I laugh because even the editor would be like, "You've seen this, like, tons of times." Every time, you kind of catch a little bit.

Question: How was he shooting footage for the film?

Villamizar: Along the way, it was just kind of like run-and-gun, almost like guerrilla-style photography they call it, right? Just kind of point and shoot – just roll and capture. So, it has that feel to it.

Question: You went into post-production knowing: OK, Manny told me this was the idea, and this is what I'm going to try to get into the film. How close do you think you got?

Villamizar: I would say a good probably 80 percent close to it. What I'm missing is his voice – more of him on camera explaining or giving you his background. That was one thing I wish we had a little bit more of.

Manny Cervantes, left, and Luis Eduardo Villamizar pose shortly before Cervantes death in 2014. Villamizar, a friend of Cervantes' and a film producer, spent the past four years helping to finish "Bikelantis," a documentary Cervantes had spent two years working on.

He had envisioned something like an animation intro or something toward the beginning so you see this place called Bikelantis. You get to explore it and see it. It was going to be a cartoonish, Wes Anderson kind of intro that he had in mind. We weren’t able to do that.

A lot of the soundtrack came from a friend of his, Noah (Mattern) – Atarilogic, a DJ-producer that's from Lafayette. He pretty much donated about five albums worth of music that's predominantly featured throughout the film. A lot of great soundtrack-style ambiance.

Question: When you talk about what you were going for, what is the basic story that you were telling here, if you’re describing it to someone coming in cold?

Villamizar: In his own words, here’s a bit of what he started writing for a director's statement: “Bikelantis is a personal essay about my love for cycling; a love letter if you will.  It’s a very personal documentary with me at the forefront expressing my memories, opinions, ideas and impressions of what’s happening in the world of cycling at this time.  The aim of the film is to entertain, educate and excite; to make people want to get on their bikes and explore.”

What I got is, it’s really a story about a friend of mine that rode his bicycle around the country for two years exploring the country's current cycling culture. It is really more about his travels and his experiences. The concept of Bikelantis was really more of an exploring, seeing that bike utopia of bicycle friendliness and how cycling is changing communities.

Question: There was a lot of pressure on you. Four years in the works, do you feel good about what you've produced?

Villamizar: Yeah, I do. This is his legacy, so I want to make sure that I present it in a way that's honoring him, but at the same time I want it to try to keep it true to his vision. I didn't want to incorporate too much about what happened (at the time of his death) and focus on that. It’s in the film, but you really go along on this journey with him and then find out what happened at the end. …

I think that it definitely is an artistic piece that I think he would've liked. I think that those that knew him would get that – a sense of like they were on the ride with him kind of, along for the ride.

Question: #LiveLikeManny kind of became a refrain among some circles around town a few years ago. What does that mean for you, to live like Manny?

Villamizar: For me, it's just living the life that you want to live without really thinking about who's going to agree with you or not, or like you or not. It's living the way that you want to live and live in the type of world that you just want to live in. It's just kind of being you, being natural, being genuine – and definitely music and bikes and art is a big part of that.

 

IF YOU GO

Friday and Sunday: “Bikelantis” will debut at 8 p.m. Friday at Carnahan Hall in Market Square Shopping Center, 2200 Elmwood Ave., Lafayette. The doors open at 7 p.m. for a Bikelantis art exhibition. A panel discussion will follow at 9:30 p.m., with music from DJs Atarilogic and Cap’n Dangerous at 10 p.m. There also will be screenings at noon and 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Carnahan Hall. All showings are free, but seats must be reserved in advance at bikelantis.com/screenings or www.carnahanhall.com/upcoming-events.

Saturday: In conjunction with the screening of “Bikelantis,” there will be a 2.5-mile kids bicycle parade at 11 a.m. at Pedal Inn and Virtuous Cycles, near 10th and Ferry streets in Lafayette. From 2-4:30 p.m., there will be a public art ride through Lafayette and West Lafayette, also starting at Pedal Inn/Virtuous Cycles. The rides are sponsored by Bicycle Lafayette and Virtuous Cycles.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.