Cantus Cursor: The Singing Runner
Cantus Cursor: The Singing Runner (working title) is a documentary film collaboration between nurse-slash-filmmaker, Ricki Richards, and the story’s subject, professional musician and amateur ultra-runner, Carl M Banks, inspecting the intersection of Music and Movement. Banks and Richards travel the entirety of the old east coast highway Route US 1, from Mile One in Fort Kent, Maine to Mile Marker Zero in Key West, Florida, following Banks on tour as he trains for an upcoming race. Banks will complete the last 100 miles on foot running alongside his brother CJ as participants in the Keys 100, a grueling hundred-mile ultra-marathon race from Key Largo to Key West. The documentary will explore themes of community, adventure and perseverance while investigating that age-old question of… why? What drives us to make music, to run 100 miles, or to simply keep moving?
Cantus Cursor is set to begin filming in April of 2022 and will wrap with the completion (or, the very real potential for non-completion) of the Keys 100 in late May 2022. Banks and Richards are a completely independent filmmaking duo and need the help of their greater network (you!) to accomplish this rather ambitious goal.
Banks is already in the midst of intensive training, running 50-75 miles per week, with the peak of his training coming in around 100 miles per week. His feet hurt, he’s hungry, and he’s always ready for more. You can follow him on Strava to watch him wrack up the miles!