Synopses (HTML)

A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE

Hawaii, USA, 2011 Video, 90min
Director: Jack McCoy
Cast: Jamie O Brian, Chad and Trace Marshall, Manoa Drolett, Stephanie Gilmore, Jordy Smith, Tom Wegener, Derek Hynd, Marty Pardarsis and Terry Chung.

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Where do you start? At the beginning. Jack McCoy takes a heady subject - the roots of surfing and the spirit of Hawaii - and gives it poetic justice: majestic, lofty, cathedral justice. This gorgeously shot feature documentary brings a new shade of blue, a mystic place where light edged wraiths dance at the edge of a crystalline consciousness. Brought up in Hawaii, and now living in Australia, McCoy gives back to his motherland by crafting a visceral expression of a gift Hawaii has bequeathed to the world - the Aloha Spirit, something, perhaps, not dissimilar to the spirit of Ubuntu here in Africa. There is cool music by Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop, Paul McCartney and Cold Play, among others. There are cool people in Jamie O Brian, Manoa Drolett, Stephanie Gilmore, Jordy Smith, Tom Wegener, Derek Hynd, and Terry Chung, among others. There is groundbreaking submarine cams tracking waves being ridden ... from under the water. These things flag the film as a must-see. There is so much more than that.

LINO

France 2010 Video, 8min
Director: Karim Rejeb
Cast: Lego surfer dudes

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Dynamite comes in small packages as Rejeb puts together a funky little animated movie about a group of Lego characters on a surf trip. Featuring humour, satire and material cleverly manipulated into tubing waves on which our little guys blast across. Old school animation painstakingly worked to reproduce the ebb and flow of the ocean and the cute machinations of a little crew of Lego ites. Rejeb, who was born in Holland but now lives in France, has an intimate knowledge of the sea. He teaches surfing every summer on the beach between famous surf regions Hossegor and Biarritz. His amazing surf paintings are an embodiment of his passion of the sea, and this is taken a step further in the flowing lines he creates in Lino.

MY EYES WON”T DRY III

USA, Hawaii Tahiti, Mexico, 2010, HD Video, 57 min
Director: Brian Conley
Cast: Brian Conley, pro and amateur tube riders

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Not since the crystalline visions of George Greenough has any single filmmaker so elegantly notched up such tube riding footage. We almost kapped this film from the programme because we thought it would be a similar mind-numbing excursion into duplication and repetition to the point of catatonia. Well, you will ride plenty of sick, standup, wide open slabby barrels with Conley. You will be force-fed the sweet candy of his tubular addiction, but you will you suck it down like the elixir of life in a windswept summer drought. You’ll also enjoy some brilliant editing, insane music and plenty of epic outside-the-barrel shots. You’ll enjoy the angle from the outside of the guy with the camera getting barrelled before zooming into the tube for the alternate view of what you just saw. There are moments when you yell to the rafters with the stoke Conley must have felt getting so stupidly shacked off his shaggy blond pip. Includes the shot when he casually jumps off the jetski and virtually directly into the tube. A definite step along the evolutionary curve of surfing cinematography.

WHO IS JOB?

Australia, Micronesia, Hawaii, El Salvador, Mexico, Indonesia, 2010, 55min
Director: Jamie O’Brien
Cast: Jamie O’Brien and other mullets

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Outspoken, out there, outed. He has a big ego, but massive talent. Jamie O brien starts this self-directed production by blasting the surf industry, who apparently told him he wasn’t “marketable”. He rips into the politics of surfing. If you’ve followed him on Twitter, you’ll have witnessed his vitriol. His anger might seem a bit much really, but he’s riding his own wave, and whether you love or hate him, there no grey areas with this dude. You have to admire the almost brutal intensity with which he attacks life. If you dig core surfing, you’ll love this film. Dik airs, giant backside hacks, and barrels big enough to suck in a Lloyd’s container. Three years of filming takes you to Tahiti, Mexico, Indonesia, and Hawaii. This movie is packed full of giant slabs that will electrify your neck and make your synapses stutter with adrenal overload. More hootworthy moments of fat slabby takeoffs that you can shake a stick at. Eclectic music score. Driving Miss Crazy. Must see.

MELALI: THE DRIFTER SESSIONS

Indonesia, 2010, HD Video, 34 min
Director: Rob Machado
Cast: Rob Machado, Dane Reynolds, Kelly Slater, Mike Lossness, Shane Dorian, and more

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A backlit green screen. Sparkling, sun washed barrels glide before your rheumy wind-flushed eyes. Pigdog silouettes tease the edges of your consciousness while your mind wonders in rhythm to the original music score by Rob Machado and his muso mates. When he was in Indo shooting the Drifter, which imposed a script and a story upon the audience, they shot gigabytes of pure, distilled surfing in Indo’s metonymically perfect peelers. Their subjects? The most innovative tube riders the world has seen set to the kiff music of a multi-talented bunch of people. They took the best of the rest, and produced a tightly edited film. Care for more black fruit pastilles? Want more? Check the film

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

Australia, Hawaii, Indo, South Africa 2010 Video, 55min
Director:
Cast: Julian Wilson

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Aussie Julian Wilson is an amazing surfer. Part of the young guard, he goes to Indo with Dusty Payne, Dane Reynolds, and Taj Burrow, whom he calls a "good crew". And with continued understatement, we are treated to modern surf porn at its most sublime. There is no big storyline. But it's pure, unadulterated surf adrenaline. It contains some of the sickest surf shots you’ll see in Hawaii, Indo, South Africa and West OZ. Shot entirely in HD there is an overhead helicopter shot about 17 minutes into the movie that people claim as the best surf clip ever. It will have you speechless. Julian tows into a big slab from overhead, and then watch him outrun this massive white cloud. You see clips of Julian as a grom, surfing, skating and even snowboarding. HE gets sponsored by Quiksilver at 13, conquers the world , makes a movie, and a perfect life is rendered. Brain Farm Cinema brings pioneering surf filmmaking to the table, utilising copter cams, and the crazy new Phantom Camera. See it to believe it.

SPLINTERS

Papa New Guinea 2011 Video HD, 94min
Director: Adam Pesce

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In the remote seaside village of Vanimo in Papa New Guinea, a single surfboard cuts a deep schism between the old ways and the new age. An Australian pilot left a surfboard on the island in the 80’s. Twenty years later, surfing has developed into a pillar of hope for the village. But that pillar is splintering. Surfing represents more than fun, and is seen as a ticket on the gravy train of the West, but seats are limited. Wrapped in violence, passion and the sheer instinct of survival of the fittest, this story of stoke and anger will make you shiver and smile. In the mould of gritty documentaries like Sea of Darkness and Bustin' Down the Door, some scenes are disturbing. Parental guidance suggested.

HIGH FIVE

Ireland, Costa Rica, HD, 2010, 36 min
Director: Transworld Surf
Cast: Andy Irons, Andrew Doheny, Fergal Smith, Wade Goodall and Eric Geiselman

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Andy Irons posthumously won the Surfer Poll Best Barrel award for a wave in High Five - a "central American drainer that seems virtually unmakeable". This offering from Transworld Surf features young up and coming charger Fergal Smith, Ireland, as he grooves out a space for himself in the world of heavy water. Roaring Irish slabs detonate in your minds eye. With a star-studded cast including Irons, Andrew Doheny, Wade Goodall and Eric Geiselman, you will be gob-smacked by back-breaking barrels ridden by men with large ... er ... boards. This is surf porn with a nipple stand (it’s cold in Ireland). Includes never-seen-before footage of Lopez, Slater and Irons at a secret lefthander.

LEAVE A MESSAGE

Indo, Australia, California, Hawaii and Mexico HD, 2011, 24 min
Director: Jason Kenworthy
Cast: Carissa Moore , Lakey Peterson, Laura Enever, Coco Ho, Byrne-Wickey Monyca and Malia Manuel

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This project, commissioned by Nike 6.0, stars the best female athletes who are leading the new generation of women in the water. Shot in exquisite HD and surrounded by breathtaking scenery on location around the world, this is 24 minutes of distilled perfection from two years of filming at epic surf spots. In the words of director Jason Kenworthy, “I follow many good guys. But these girls are doing things that are hard to believe." Beautiful in every way, this groundbreaking film transcends gender-based expectations. It’s no longer about who surfs better than who. This movie elevates surfing to new heights of grace and power.

CHASING THE SWELL

Hawaii, California, Mexico, HD Video, 2010, 32 min
Director: Sachi Cunningham
Cast: Carlos Burle, Shane Dorian, Mark Healey, Greg Long, Ramon Navarro, Mike Schlebach, James Taylor, Chris Bertish, and Grant Baker

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Divided into three segments, Chasing the Swell is a project commissioned – unusually – by the newspaper Los Angeles Times to focus on big wave riding and some of the personalities who dominate the sport. The film chases giant swells across the Pacific while giving a straight up insight into what drives the surfers, and how they deal with the stress, emotional and physical. The group who star in the film are dominated by South Africans Mike Schlebach, James Taylor, Chris Bertish, and Grant Baker. You can cut the dramatic tension with a knife when Dorian disappears for a two-wave hold-down at Mavericks – the on-screen clock counts past 60 seconds, and he’s still underwater.

THE STILL POINT

Hawaii, California, Mexico, 8, 16mm, video, 2011, 61 min
Director: Taki Bibelas
Cast: Miki Dora, Tom Morey, Mark Cunningham, Mike Doyle, George Downing, Skip Frye, Ricky Grigg, Joey Cabell and Brian Keaulana

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This fascinating left-of-field film took Bibelas five years to make. It won Best Surf Film at the Byron Bay International Film Festival. A compelling, soulful exploration of the emotional fragility of the human spirit, and the link it has to the ocean. Inspired by a TS Eliot poem called Four Quartets, Bibelas, a top photographer for Vogue and other leading magazines, tackles a project about his friend Miki Dora, and ended up creating a film that goes beyond surfing. In his words: “It lead me to setting up the film the way it is — like a poem, a film about everything and nothing, a film about water, the ocean and life as seen though the eyes of some very insight­ful surfing personalities. There is very little surfing in the film, but we really feel it.”

SURFING DOLPHINS

South Africa, California, Video, 2010, 20 min
Director: Greg Huglin
Cast: Dolphins

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Greg Huglin has become synonymous with beautiful photography depicting sharks and dolphins, but this film aggregates his obsession into a tour de force. As reviewer Kevin Naughton writes of the film: “Huglin crosses the liquid line that separates us from them. It’s a stunning labour of love, 14 years in the making with visuals that will elicit gasps of wonder and awe. You don’t have to be a surfer to appreciate this film, but only a surfer could have made it this way.” Watch ultra slow mo footage, as well as normal speed footage, of dolphins weaving their magic in, over and beneath waves breaking around the South African and Californian coast.

A DINGO’s TALE

Australia, Indo, Video, 2011, 46 min
Director: Matt Gye and Shagga
Cast: Dingo, Rabbit, Parko, Fanning, Kelly, Bruce Irons, and others

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Some say this pocket wave magnet is the most barrelled human in history, and that he grew up in the tube, but his early life was fraught. He came from a broken home in Coolangatta, not far from Kirra Point in Australia. Around him everyone took drugs to cope with life. But Dean “Dingo” Morrison opted to surf. One day, the diminutive 11-year-old rocked up at a Snapper surf club event hosted by Rabbit Bartholomew. He blitzed his older, more fancied opposition. From that day, Rabbit took the child protégé under his wing, raising him as his son, and the rest is history. The pocket wave magnet talent blast across the perfect sand pits of Kirra Point, and his pint-sized frame tackle the gnarliest waves including Pipeline, Teahuoo and the notorious Shipsterns. Tubes. Oh yes. Tubes.

BLUE SWAY

Hawaii, Indo, Video, 2011, 11 min
Director: Jack McCoy
Cast: Jack McCoy, Paul McCartney

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Jack McCoy got some incredible footage for his brand new film A Deeper Shade of Blue, which premiered in July 2011 in Hawaii. He got this footage by riding on a special submarine cam, enabling him to ride the back of the curling breaking wave underwater, following the surfers on that sun-glinted carve through the crystal tunnel. Paul McCartney got to see some of the footage, and next thing, Jack and Paul are partners in a music video. This is the story of the production, with some of the footage and some of the music. Amazing.