A Motorcycle Saved My Life by Lori Lozinski, screening at the 2023 Victoria Film Festival, is a personal look into the Vancouver-based filmmaker’s journey of growth since her parents passed away, and she wants to share it with the world.
Lozinski got into motorcycling as a way to cope with the pain of bereavement. Being on the open road and experiencing nature was really healing for her.
“I didn’t really realize how much that motorcycle truly saved my life,” she says, “because it really made me want to live again.”
In the short film, Lozinski says that riding her motorcycle helped her after her parents’ deaths partially because it helped her be present within herself and not get lost in depressive thought spirals.
“That’s what the beauty of motorcycling is,” she says. “To me, that’s the reason a lot of connections in the movie were with horses, which is something my mother did quite successfully and competitively for a while. You have to be present on a horse, and you have to be present on a motorcycle as well, because they can both kill you—motorcycles maybe a little bit faster—but if you’re not present in these activities, then your life is in danger.”
Lozinski says that early on in her life she had difficulty accepting herself as a woman on her own journey, either because she felt her father had always wanted her to be a boy or because her mother wanted her to adopt very traditional gender roles. After their passing, Lozinski felt the freedom to accept and love herself for who she is.
“It was about my own personal acceptance of myself as a woman, and what that means,” says Lozinski. “Making the film is just about this reclamation of what it means to be feminine, and the divine feminine, so their death, through making this film, has really pushed me to be much more secure in my femininity.”
Lozinski says that she wants people to remember to tell their loved ones how much they mean to them, before it’s too late… because not everybody gets the opportunity to.
“I think that’s really important to me, for people watching the film, is that hopefully they want to connect with the people that they love in their lives and let them know,” she says. “That’s always the hardest part, because these people are no longer on this plane with us, and you don’t have that opportunity to talk to them anymore and tell them that you love them, and how much they mean to you.”
Making this film has allowed Lozinski to gain a healthier perspective on death, and coming out of it, she feels much stronger as a person.
“I think I’m much more emotionally balanced now, and I just have a healthier attitude about death, and what that is for me, and to not be afraid of it,” she says. “I just really try and go into every day knowing that if I died today, I’m good, and that’s really important to me.”
Lozinski says that she believes that even beyond death, life goes on in other ways, and this is comforting to her.
“I have a counsellor that’s been pretty regular in my life for the last number of years, and while I was dealing with the hard times emotionally while I was editing, she kind of just said a statement to me,” says Lozinski. “She just said, ‘Finality is a myth,’ and I really just take that to heart on all levels, whether it’s our humanity and our mortality and that kind of stuff. I really ponder that statement a lot, and it really gives me great comfort to know that there’s no end, there’s just different forms.”
Victoria Film Festival
Friday, February 3 to Sunday, February 12
Various prices and venues
victoriafilmfestival.com