Bike Vessel
(THIS FILM WAS PART OF OUR 2024 FESTIVAL LINEUP AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE ON THE SLAMDANCE CHANNEL) Eric D. Seals grew up eating just about every southern delicacy you could name: pulled pork, liverwurst sandwiches, fried fish, alongside his father, Donnie Seals Sr. Living in Wheaton, a west suburb of Chicago, he also watched his dad drink and smoke for almost ten years, until 1995 when he almost died. Donnie Seals Sr. would undergo his first open-heart surgery before age 50. In the next fifteen years, he would have a total of 3 quadruple bypass surgeries and be forced into early retirement. However, the story doesn’t end there. Seals’ is now 70 years old and bicycles more than 30 miles daily; his heart problems have all but disappeared. Having once been on more than 20 daily medications, he is now down to one, and his doctors call his recovery miraculous. A cinema-verite, participatory documentary following Seals Sr. and filmmaker Eric as they bike from St. Louis to Chicago. Bike Vessel also utilizes archival footage/photographs and animations to take viewers to Seals’ previous, unhealthy life and health complications while giving audiences an intimate look inside a Black working-class family in the Midwest. By the film's end, viewers will understand where Seals once was in his health journey, how he fully recovered, and his everyday commitment and struggle of never returning to where he once was. The filmmaker’s health similarities to his dad are striking. Bike Vessel has become an emotional self-reflection for Eric, who is approaching his dad's age when he had his first open-heart surgery. During the film, you see him ride alongside his father, symbolizing the parallels in their health journeys. An intimate look into a father-son relationship, Bike Vessel is a poetic meditation on kinship, connection, and deep familial love. This documentary tells the story of a man defying health statistics and renewing his lease on life. It examines health disparities among Black men, the group with the lowest life expectancy and highest death rate of any other racial and ethnic group. Bike Vessel utilizes Seals’ health journey to showcase the health issues in our country, from our complex and unaffordable health insurance systems to racism and discrimination in health care.