Meet Corinna Mantlo, Founder

by Motorcycle Film Festival | Aug 1, 2014 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Hi Corinna. Jack credits you with coming up with the Motorcycle Film Festival. Is this true and if so how did you rope him into it?

Well, as the founder and curator of Cine Meccanica I spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about motorcycles and movies, and I have a background in film. The Motorcycle Film Festival was just a 3-in-the-morning idea of highlighting the films that I’d been screening at Cine Meccanica. The minute it occurred to me, I knew it was genius! 

I searched the interwebs for any other similar festivals. Lo and behold I was one of two geniuses. The Los Angeles Motorcycle Film Festival had just opened submissions for their first festival of short films. I found them a few shorts and sponsors, but didn’t get my own film together. I never stopped thinking about a festival where feature films could have a home too. A year later all the stars aligned. I mentioned the idea to a group of motorcycle community friends, including Jack, with whom I had been organizing successful motorcycle events for several years. I knew that a festival on this scale could only happen with him at the helm. So, I bought him a beer, or three, and crossed my fingers that he’d say yes…god bless him for taking this ragtag, punk rock, bar napkin idea and making it into the well-oiled machine with international reach. 

Because of the origin of the idea, we reached out to LA Moto Film Fest as we developed The Motorcycle Film Festival, and they have been super supportive. It shows, as with everything surrounding this festival, it truly is by and for the community. Jack and I are very proud of it.  

You’ve been running Cine Meccanica for the last four years. Can you tell us a little about that and how it started?

I got my motorcycle license in 2001; since then I’ve devoted myself to bikes, classic cars, wrenching, riding, knitting and film. I founded the infamous, free, weekly, knitting class and social circle Booze & Yarn in New Orleans in 2001. Shortly thereafter I moved back home to NYC and kept it going. Around 2006 I introduced Ave “B” Movies because what goes better with booze and yarn than ‘B’ Movies?!

On February 2nd of 2010, Cine Meccanica debuted with The Car (1977) to a packed house of bikers and knitters wearing miner’s headlamps so they wouldn’t drop stitches while watching the flicks. By 2011, Booze & Yarn ended, but the vehicular films lived on. Cine Meccanica has become a weekly destination for the NYC motorcycle community to meet and swap tales of the road and woes of the wrench while enjoying a cold beer and a free classic vehicular film…every damn Wednesday.

For me, The Motorcycle Film Festival extends this progression. I’m thrilled and honored to have been able to put it together for the community and myself. 

Why start the Motorcycle Film Festival if you had this weekly series already established?

Cine Meccanica has always taken pride in screening new vehicular films, most by independent filmmakers. However, The Motorcycle Film Festival provides a showcase to bring together films from all over the world to share them with the international motorcycle community. It truly is an international film festival, specifically of the two-wheeled persuasion.

You’ve helped establish The Miss-Fires, an all women’s motorcycle club that has a pretty diverse membership, which is helping with the Festival. How and why did this group form?

After years of riding with the NYC motorcycle community, why I didn’t know more women riders? I wanted to meet and support more women in motorcycling…’cause, you know, I am one. Motorcycling can be a very intimidating to get into as a woman, though that is changing every day. 

So, The Miss-Fires began quite simply. I sent a text message inviting four women rider friends to a Tuesday night dinner scoot. They texted their friends, who texted theirs. This turned into 80 riders just 9 months after that first dinner scoot in October of 2013. The Miss-Fires has filled a need for women riders within the male dominated motorcycle community. Though we ride with the fellas and adore them, we now have a dedicated forum where women who ride support each other in all things motorcycling. For me, it’s a community that I didn’t think I needed until I had it. The Miss-Fires inspire each other, and even the men, to push themselves to the next level of motorcycling. 

That the MFF has a Miss-Fires dominated staff this year just goes to show how dedicated we are to supporting the larger motorcycle community. 

What got you into riding in the first place?

My love of motorcycles, vintage specifically, comes directly from film. Buster Keaton, Brando, McQueen. I grew up watching movies—any and everything—but those guys on bikes got me. They were the ultimate cool. Even though I dressed, smoked and adored the female silver screen heroines like Clara Bow and Marlene Dietrich, I couldn’t help but want the adventure and dark, brooding, cool of the boys on bikes. I traded in heels and stockings for boots and trousers. My hair became unkempt and flat from helmets. Once on two wheels at 21 I never looked back. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair. I don’t dress the part anymore, but I feel the part every time I kick over my old finicky British bike.    

You are involved in a street riding, flat track, and will ride in the Baja 500 this year. How do you stay tuned into so many riding styles and do you have a favorite?

Try anything once? Questionable sanity? Honestly it’s simple. After a particularly bad day a few years back, I decided that life is short and opportunities are worth taking. Each time that I tried something new, I found I was growing stronger as a person and a rider. Vintage flat track is terrifying and insane, but a hell of a good time. And, it’s made me a better street rider. The Baja 500 is a once in a lifetime opportunity made possible by the team that invited me “to get in the van.” If I make it across the starting line and earn the honor to call myself the first woman to race the Norra Vintage 500….how could I not do it?! I don’t know my favorite riding style yet, but I’ll keep trying new things until I can answer that question properly. 

What do you ride and what’s your dream bike?

I ride a 1968 BSA Lightning 650 hot rod. I also have a 1971 Yamaha AT1 125 dual purpose dirt/street bike and a recently acquired 1971 BSA Victor 250 desert sled bike for the Baja 500 that I’ll race with Team Hellbound And Down. I always wanted another vintage Triumph—I’ve owned several—but honestly I want a modern bike to go the distance. Next year I’d like to criss-cross this great country. I also plan on building an early tank shift Harley-Davidson next year—after I’ve recovered financially and physically from Baja. 

What’s been your favorite riding experience?

Riding with the Miss-Fires. They make the shortest of rides inspiring, and because of them I am going farther and harder than I ever rode before. 

Back to film. What’s your favorite motorcycle movie?

Of all time?! Geez, how does the celluloid crazed wacky behind Cine Meccanica choose? Those I loved as a kid will always be my favorites. Buster Keaton in Sherlock JR, and Brando and Lee Marvin in The Wild One. But also Motorcycle Boy in Rumble Fish and Johnny Depp in Cry Baby. And where would the world be without Werewolves on Wheels and I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle?!