The documentary, Speed is Expensive: Philip Vincent and the Million Dollar Motorcycle, which is narrated by Ewan McGregor and written and directed by Senior Lecturer in the Westminster School of Media and Communications David Lancaster, has appeared in Variety magazine after being acquired by distributors in the US and UK.
Since then, Speed is Expensive has also been selected to screen at the prestigious Melbourne Documentary Film Festival in Australia in July.
The documentary tells the story of Philip Vincent, the man who designed the world’s most expensive motorcycle yet ended his days in poverty, unrecognised, and living in council housing in West London.
Now, however, some models of the motorcycle Vincent designed to sell for $1 million and are owned by celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds.
David and his crew filmed in Australia just before lockdown and recreated the 1953 speed record runs of one very special model, the ‘Black Lightening,’ back on the very same road where it originally achieved over 140mph in Gunnedah, a town west of Sydney. As part of the filming, the crew interviewed two men who watched the bike set the record in the early 1950s when they were young boys.
The 80-minute film also features accounts from multi-world champion the late John Surtees, plus US talk show legend Jay Leno.
About filming in Australia, David Lancaster said: “The country plays a key part in the Philip Vincent story: his co-designer Phil Irving travelled from there over to England on the back of a motorcycle sidecar to join Vincent in 1931. And the bike that reached $1 million at auction was the same one which we filmed re-creating its outright Australian land speed record in 1953. It is now back in its home country.”
The documentary has now been acquired by Virgil Films in the USA and Lighbulb Film Distribution in the UK. The news about these acquisitions was announced in a special Cannes Film Festival edition of Variety magazine, which was published online in May 2023, and in a specially printed festival version. The publication was circulated to thousands from the worlds of film and TV who gather in the French resort every year to watch movies and network.
Lancaster said: “Finding good distribution agents has been a real learning curve. We wanted to work with people who were a good fit. With Virgil Films now representing Speed is Expensive in the US, and Lightbulb Films in the UK, we have found the right partners.
“The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is a major event for us to be invited to screen at. We were up against some of the best work from around the world, so it is wonderful to be selected.”
Speed is Expensive will have a limited cinema release in the US in the autumn and will be available on digital platforms shortly after in the US and UK. The film had its debut in London last year at the Barnes Film Festival and Lancaster has now joined the festival as one of its judges in the feature documentary category.
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On the set of Speed is Expensive
Jay Leno being interviewed for the documentary
Producer James Salter ready to film Super 8 on the banking at the Montlhéry circuit near Paris
Interviewing record-setter Marty Dickerson in California
Vincent factory worker Hans Edwards
