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Revelstokians bike for mental health in latest cycling film

Revelstoke Times Review - 10/27/2020

Frank Desrosiers lost a friend to suicide a couple years ago.

This triggered a deep dive into trying to understand emotional health and how to be balanced.

For Desrosiers, an important part of his own well-being is cycling.

"Biking for me has been an escape," he said.

When sitting down to brainstorm his next art-film project, Desrosiers kept coming back to biking and exploring how other people use their bikes.

One year later, Full Circle debuted at LUNA Re-imagined.

Full Circle Trailor from François Desrosiers on Vimeo.

The film uses psychologist Robert Plutchik's emotional wheel as a storytelling device exploring why people in Revelstoke bike.

The wheel centres all human emotional responses around eight core emotions: trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation and joy.

In Desrosiers film, there are eight characters, each relating to an emotion: a child trusts their mom while learning to ride a bike, Chris Miller anticipates his next bike trip and a widow cycles every day, dealing with her grief.

Each of the characters are long-time Revelstoke residents.

"It took every personal and business relationship I had to make this film happen," Desrosiers said.

Written with help from local artist Rob Buchanan, the film begins with an actor discussing Plutchik's theory. The rest of the film is silent, with only music and background noises to support the story.

Desrosiers has lived in Revelstoke for 20 years. In 1999 he was in an avalanche in Rogers Pass, breaking almost every bone in his body.

He fell into the film industry while in rehabilitation.

"I needed something to do in town," he said.

In the beginning, he was doing art-films, but as the business grew he moved away from that, shooting for all sorts of clients from the ski industry to CBC.

"I haven't done a personal project like this in a long time," he said.

Full Circle will be screened at the Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre with a date yet to be confirmed. Desrosiers is hoping to get it out to a wider audience as well, but those plans are still in the works.