My Red Bicycle

"My Red Bicycle / Mein rotes Fahrrad" is a funky song written and performed by 70-year-old German Black Forest blues musician Bernd 'Blondie' Wallschek, it is a song about the irresistible power of love as the red bike takes our protagonist across mountains and valleys to unite with his lover. The music video was conceptualized, filmed and edited by award-winning filmmaker Holger E. Metzger.

  • Holger E. Metzger
    Director
    The Useless Glassblower
  • Holger E. Metzger
    Producer
    The Useless Glassblower
  • Bernd 'Blondie' Wallaschek
    Key Cast
    "self"
  • Iris Wallaschek
    Key Cast
    "self"
  • Holger E. Metzger
    Editor
    The Useless Glassblower
  • Holger E. Metzger
    Cinematography
    The Useless Glassblower
  • Kaiming Chen
    Cinematography
  • Project Type:
    Music Video
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    October 28, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany
  • Language:
    German
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Holger E. Metzger

Holger E. Metzger
Black Forest, Germany & Shanghai, China

Holger E. Metzger founded TMRC Impact / Narrative Acuity, a consumer psychology insights and brand communication agency, in Shanghai in 1998. He is native fluent in Chinese, English and German.

As a screenwriter & director, Holger’s first film success was the Chinese-language web-series ‘Men, Impossible’ with a female rights angle on the social issue of so-called 'left-over women' in 2014. It gained 12 million views within a few days on iqiyi.com before being removed by Chinese censors for being ‘socially disruptive’ (the ending did not conform to stereotypical patriarchal views of a woman's role in society at the time...it clearly left an impact).

Holger has been creating, writing and directing short films that focus on social and personal tensions in times of transformation (e.g., 'Brain Science', an entertainingly cynical view on what 'Win-Win' really means in China), 'Buzzcut', an animated short on the how the concept of ‘rule of law’ is being defined in China, and numerous mini-documentaries for brands that he and his team have been working for. Between 2017-19, Holger created, wrote and directed the 3-Season, 21-episode dramatic live action series 'I, Human' for a leading global educational group as a core element of their cutting-edge Mandarin learning program, as well as a 3- season animated series for younger learners.

Recently Holger completed the German-language short documentary “Der Nutzlose Glaspuster (The Useless Glassblower)” on a traditional Black Forest which glass artist won several international film festival awards.

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Director Statement

I enjoy storytelling in multiple layers, starting with the story itself in script form, then the cinematographic translation and bifurcation - given the vast range of possibilities for metaphoric storytelling in this visual sphere - and of course the editing which is yet another storytelling dimension. Music videos do serve as an excellent playground for all those dimensions, sometimes even more challenging to pull off as coherent pieces, compares to some other genres and formats.

As for "My Red Bicycle", not only did I like the song, I was impressed with the 70-year-old songwriter and performer's youthfulness and agility (in mind and body), crucial elements that helped infuse this music video with unbridled energy and a mesmerizing sense of anticipation.