How to make a SURF FILM
THE FILM MAKERS
“The actual lack of fucking application,” says South African-born filmmaker Michael Oblowitz, “is exactly why these South African filmmakers have no hope in fucking hell. Because you’re so insular. You need to get off your own asses and out of your own world and look at the world outside, you know? Seriously.”
Strong words from an angry man with a “huge fucking beef with Zigzag” all the way from New York – and probably aimed more at this journalist than the people you will read about below. But still proof that success and acclaim does not always lead to magnanimity or wisdom. Because South African surf films and filmmakers have been making increasingly larger waves on the local and international scenes.
The aforementioned Michael Oblowitz is most famous for his 2008 documentary epic Sea of Darkness that chronicles G-Land in the 1970s, the characters who pioneered it and the nefarious and illegal activities they engaged in to keep their Endless Summer… well, endless. It’s a classic.
His follow up, Heavy Water, about Nathan Fletcher’s attempt to acid drop from a helicopter onto a wave, fell short (in more ways than one), even if it was, as Oblowitz breathlessly points out, “acclaimed as the greatest surf film ever made by Steve Shearer, Chas Smith and Derek Reilly at Beachgrit”. They’re wrong. But he is currently working on a Sunny Garcia bio that holds much promise.
But back to Oblowitz’s less, won a Surfer Poll and Emmy Award. Rick Wall’s big wave meditation, , won the Best Film award at the Sunshine Coast Film Festival as well as the Waimea Ocean Film Festival. Jason Hearn’s is a beautifully shot spiritual journey, and Bryan Little’s has become something of an underground cult classic.
