A Motorcycle Saved My Life

lori lozinski's short film The Pilgrimage screened at TMFF 2020.

Director's Statement

The title of the film is clearly an oxymoron. How can engaging in such perceived and unforgiving risky behaviour be lifesaving? Grief was a feeling I aggressively avoided most of my life, and when I could no longer run from the immediacy of my parents’ deaths, I was desperate to find a way to exist with such profound pain.  This film’s narrative intent is to situate the audience on the motorcycle with me. To see, hear and feel what I feel when I’m on the road, riding from my current home in Vancouver, BC, back to the land I cherished as a child, and where some of my family still reside, in Northern Alberta. The motive behind not seeing anyone speaking is to nourish the sense that this could all be in the present, or a memory, or maybe a dream, or maybe it embraces all concepts of time. Often, the flow of riding a motorcycle is like that—an exquisite loose reality.  It’s that state of mind, and the experiences I’ve had while riding, that empowered me in learning how to live with grief. And how to preserve a connection to my parents. And ultimately, how to love myself. 

Director Bio

lori lozinski is an award-winning Vancouver-based filmmaker and the President of Violator Films Inc, an independent production company that has been telling maverick stories since 2007. She is recognized for producing socially conscious, character-driven stories with female creatives. In 2020, lori wrote and directed the short documentary The Pilgrimage for CBC Gem. Recent producing collaborations include the feature documentary Kímmapiyiipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (world premiere at Hot Docs 2021; CSA for best feature documentary); the Canada/Norway co-produced feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (world premiere at Berlinale 2019; Rogers Best Canadian Film Award; CSAs for best cinematography, direction and original screenplay); the feature film Sugar Daddy (CSAs for best original song and supporting actor); the documentary RETAKE ; the feature film Once There Was a Winter; and, as  executive producer, the feature film Never Steady, Never Still. lori is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre, Trans Atlantic Partners, Women in the Director’s Chair and the Rotterdam Lab, and was nominated for the 2019 and 2020 CMPA Indiescreen Established Producer Awards.