Juliette Binoche, Sally El Hosaini and Isabel Coixet, are among the six filmmakers taking part in anthology film Bike Me Up, which will shoot across six European cities this summer, celebrating the locations’ relationships with cycling.
Binoche will make her debut as writer and director for the Paris film, in which she will star alongside Ralph Fiennes. London will be written and directed by El Hosaini and feature James Krishna Floyd. Berlin will be directed by Matthias Schweighöfer and star himself and Ruby O. Fee.
The Barcelona segment will be helmed by Coixet, while Bucharest will be written and directed by Cristina Jacob. Asger Leth will write and direct the Copenhagen portion with the six films being linked together by an overarching narrative written and directed by Frédéric Auburtin.
Bike Me Up seeks to draw on cycling’s romantic association with cinema, from classics such as Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Jacques Tati’s The Big Day, to modern films like David Koepp’s Premium Rush, as well as exploring the positive environmental impact of cycling, with sustainable production a key focus for the producers.
The film is to be made under the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production, produced by Christian Bolzli Film Executive in France, Philip Herd’s Chromatic Aberration in the UK, and Schweighöfer’s Pantaleon Films in Germany.
Bolzli and Auburtin previously collaborated together on Paris, Je T’aime, a project with 22 co-directors, that opened Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2006, on which they were executive producer and co-director respectively.
“With cinema having the power to move and inspire people worldwide like no other medium, Bike Me Up will be a joyous celebration of uniquely human love, wit, and creativity as well as a much-needed evolution of our craft in the 21st century,” said the filmmaking team.
