Vancouver artist Peter Ricq has a lot to celebrate on Friday (June 30). He’s screening his first (and last) documentary film Come Together, reflecting on the trip of a lifetime to Bogotá, Colombia, and stepping away from visual art for the time being.

The world premiere of Come Together, codirected with Joe Klymkiw, takes place at the New Ayden Gallery at 35 East 3^rd Avenue. Each $10 ticket comes with a free beer, two hours of dog sitting in the neighbouring dog park, a dance party, and admission to an exhibit of new artworks by the colourful characters in the film.

If this seems like an unconventional event schedule for a film premiere, it’s only fitting considering the documentary's story. In 2013, Ricq and his friend Ken Lum, curator of the Ayden Gallery, set off with a handful of artist friends to put on a music and art festival in Bogotá, Colombia. Naturally, nothing went as planned: they barely sold any art, saw their personal belongings stolen, and lost tens of thousands of dollars in the process. The ensuing chaos, set against the backdrop of Bogotá‘s politically-charged art scene, makes up the narrative of Come Together’s 90-minute runtime.

All hijinks aside, Ricq’s standout portion of the film uses documentary and interview footage to paint the backdrop of Bogotá‘s now-thriving street art scene, with a quick history lesson on how it came to be. In 2011, a 16-year-old street artist was killed by police. Then in 2013, a security-detailed Justin Bieber visited Bogotá and tagged an off-limits wall with law enforcement’s blessing. The city’s street artists grabbed their brushes and spray cans in protest, and since then, they’ve been unstoppable. Ricq says this historical context is essential to understanding the art show and the city featured in Come Together.  

The festival saw a pretty good turnout even though they didn’t sell much art. Eight of the Colombian artists were invited back to Canada to participate in a show at the Ayden Gallery. The filmmakers wanted to bring them out for Friday’s event, but it was out of their price range. Ricq is hoping that, by raising funds, he can show the film in Colombia and reconnect with collaborators.

Ricq–who is also known as a comic book artist, creator of The League of Super Evil, and founding member of the band HUMANS, was candid in an interview with the Straight about the risks when he and his companions stepped onto the plane to Bogotá four years ago. Two weeks before the festival’s start date, he was informed that he wouldn’t be compensated for any losses to the $15,000 he had invested in the project. But Ricq said the material that would come out of the trip was too good to pass up.

“I thought for the story of the movie there was something there,” said Ricq.  “We go there, it turns out great, a lot of people show up, we sell a bunch of art, and we break even, then there’s the story of these guys who still went through with it. Then there’s another side of the story where it just went so wrong, nothing happened, we lost everything, got robbed, and then there’s a story there too. So it was like, let’s just do it for the adventure of what the outcome’s gonna be.”

An adventure it was, even though the team far from broke even. Ticket sales from the film premiere are going towards festival submissions, so four years of hard work might culminate with some folks getting to see the film. 

Ricq has fond memories of his time in Bogotá, and hopes the film will encourage people to step outside their comfort zones, too.

 “It’s great to tour Canada and Vancouver’s beautiful, but take risks. It builds character. People are afraid to go to places that are full of beautiful people in the end.”

Now that editing process is drawing to a close, Ricq is partially relieved to be done with the four-year project. He’s moving on to more work in feature-length, narrative filmmaking, and adapting his graphic novel Once Our Land into an animated film. But that’s it for documentaries and for visual art--there’s just not enough money in art sales any more, especially for a guy who spent most of his savings on a festival that some might call a failure. But Ricq has no regrets.

“I had made a couple TV shows, I was making good money, I had some money saved up,” said Ricq.

“So maybe it wasn’t the best way to spend it, but I dunno. Maybe it’s fine.”

Tickets and information about the film’s premiere can be found here.