By Connie Leinbach
When does Ocracoke Island ever get to see the state premier of a movie?
Ocracoke was treated to just that on Feb. 4 when documentary filmmaker Ben Knight presented his new film “Best Day Ever.”
The 48-minute film, shown in the Deepwater Theater, has already won numerous awards as it makes the rounds at film festivals, and well it should. It is a joyous work that deserves to be shown far and wide.
Ocracoke Islander Knight directed, edited and filmed (using several other cinematographers) this story about building a world-class mountain bike trail network called The Driving Range in Vermont that those needing adaptive bikes can use.
It tells the story of Greg Durso and Allie Bianchi, both paralyzed and in wheelchairs.
Greg would accompany his friends on biking trails in the Green Mountains, and the friends would continually have to stop and portage Greg over various bridges.
So, as Berne Broudy, who spearheaded the idea and receives co-director credit says in the film, she and Greg’s friends took it upon themselves to create their own adaptive trail network, which in 2024 became the world’s first fully adaptive trail network.
Between scenes of building the trail and glimpses of the surrounding countryside, the audience learns of Greg’s history, whose legs were paralyzed from a childhood sledding accident.
Allie’s accident two years prior left her paralyzed from the neck down with very limited arm mobility.
Knight builds narrative tension with inventive camera angles as the adaptive bikers, along with people on two-wheel bikes, race around hairpin turns, zip down 45-degree (and steeper) rock inclines, then head straight at the audience and, whoosh! Kick up dirt into the camera.
With respect and compassion, Knight invests viewers emotionally into the two characters through touching scenes with their friends.
The courage that Greg and Allie exhibit is palpable, building to a thrilling ending as Greg finally attacks the new course and we get to ride along with Allie as she straps into a specially designed mountain bike and braves the same trail where her life was changed forever.
Knight has captured this joyous and visually beautiful tale with the art of a true storyteller—action, tension, emotion. It’s all there.
This film is as good as any Hollywood feature film in arousing emotion, perhaps even better because this is not fiction. This is the real deal–the struggle and triumph by real human beings, to which we all can relate.
Last year, “Best Day Ever” won the Audience Choice Award in the Overall Documentary category in the Heartland International Film Festival, Indianapolis, Indiana.
It also won audience choice best sports film at Banff, an all-documentary film festival, last year.
“Best Day Ever” will next be shown at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh at 7 p.m. on Feb. 25 as part of the Mountainfilm on Tour event.
The Feb. 4 showing was part of Ocracoke Alive’s winter cultural offerings, which continue to the end of March.
Prior to “Best Day Ever,” Knight showed another of his films, “Mirasol,” about a chili farm in Pueblo, Colorado, famous for its one-of-a-kind chilis that were developed there.
The farm is being squeezed by development, which in Colorado is called “buy and dry,” or buy and sell the water rights, Knight said.
Knight has the gift of being able to draw out emotion from his subjects, and this emanates fully from the people who talk about their farming heritage and how it builds family and community and how it is being threatened.
Ben is indeed talented with an intuitive ability to evoke emotions in his work. I just watched the trailer. This appears to be yet another example of story telling in its finest. I look forward to seeing the full production.
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