“Ever since I can remember, Grandpa Mel would tell me the story of his 1945 bike ride adventure from his childhood home in Brooklyn to the city of Philadelphia,” explains filmmaker and Cultural Weekly community member Alex Leff. “It was an adventure he would remember for the rest of his life… until Grandpa Mel lost his memory to Alzheimer’s. So over 70 years later, my brother Koby and I are going on the same 100-mile journey ourselves. Grandpa may have lost his memory, but we are going to find it. Along the way, we search for family members, friends and grandpa’s bike trip companion, who can help piece together the life of a man who can no longer remember it.”

Alex’s film, Now and Again, is a feature documentary weaving together a bicycle quest with one families’ multigenerational history and their struggles with Mel’s Alzheimers, becoming a reflection on time, memory, and family relationships.

Alex and his team have recorded over 75 hours of the bike trip, interviews, and intimate family moments, preserved and digitized precious family films from the ‘50s to ‘90s, built a collaborative team of experienced filmmakers, and have traveled the country pitching the film and workshopping with other filmmakers. Now in post-production, this labor of love is almost ready for the world.

Alex is doing a crowdfunding campaign with Seed&Spark. Learn more in the video, then head over to Now and Again’s Seed&Spark page to contribute what you can.