SURF FILMS IN FOCUS AT THE BYRON BAY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022 OCTOBER 21-30

Browsing tends to draw a sure form of particular person: the vagabond, the outsider, adventurer/risk-takers, these on the lookout for the rawest – and most uplifting – experiences life can supply.

One such is Californian Dick Metz, now 93, who caught his first wave aged seven on a redwood surfboard weighing practically 50kgs. In 1958, Dick set off on a three-year browsing journey around the globe and upon his return advised his good friend Bruce Brown about his travels. It was the inspiration for Brown’s movie The Infinite Summer season – maybe essentially the most well-known and well-loved surf movies of all time.

BBFF2022 is glad to be screening the Australian Premiere of a full of life documentary that reveals the untold story behind Dick’s adventures – and the 1966 movie – with the documentary Beginning of the Infinite Summer season.  For veteran boardriders it would stir nice reminiscences of their very own infinite summers; for grommets it would encourage their private seek for enjoyable. For everybody it would function a reminder that the seashore is the place to go.

The unique movie, The Infinite Summer season itself, may have a particular retrospective screening at Lennox Head Cultural Centre on Sunday October 23 as 1 half of a double characteristic with Waterman.

If Metz was the daddy of recent browsing, Duke Paoa Kahanamoku is its godfather – a legend in his personal nation and globally, a towering determine who confirmed what it was to play with dignity, to combine enjoyable and the Aristocracy, to succeed in the head of a sport and stay humble. His story is advised within the highly effective, family-friendly documentary Waterman – a phrase nonetheless utilized in browsing circles in Byron and past as the last word accolade for somebody who acquits him or herself with confidence, data and humility within the waves.

Kelly Slater calls him the King of Browsing, however Duke was additionally an Olympic celebrity and a Hawaiian icon. From modest roots in Waikiki, Duke swam his solution to fame, turning into the face of a altering Hawaii – and an important a part of its tourism trade – because it developed from an impartial kingdom to the fiftieth American state.

Good, lovely and black, Duke shattered data and defied racism to convey browsing to the world. Narrated by Jason Momoa, Waterman options commentary from browsing’s greatest stars, together with newly-crowned Olympic gold medallist Carissa Moore, whereas relating Hawaii’s historical past and the that means of Aloha.

Duke travelled, after all, however he had all he wanted within the waters of his dwelling isles. For many years now the seek for the proper wave has taken Australians – and surfers of each nationality – all around the globe, from Bali to Biarritz, Mexico to Morocco. Portugal is a big drawcard on that international circuit – particularly for the large wave challenges at Nazare.

The tiny city with the enormous waves is a stopping level for famend skipper and life-long thrill-seeker Matt Knight, his household and world-class large wave surfer Andrew Cotton on their journey into essentially the most distant and harmful areas of the Atlantic Ocean that’s documented in Savage Waters – a hunt for buried treasure on a reef-fringed island group, and a seek for a legendary, by no means earlier than ridden wave. Narrated by the legendary Charles Dance, Savage Waters boasts jaw-dropping cinematography, mind-boggling journey, and heart-warming footage displaying the household that surfs collectively laughs collectively. Director Mikey Corker captures a number of catamaran journeys into uncharted waters with damage, sickness and lethal hazard fixed reminders of the joys of residing within the second – and on the edge.

A lot-travelled and award successful filmmaker Peter Hamblin, who introduced us Let’s Be Frank and Riss, returns with one other masterpiece this yr, titled Candy Journey. The affable South African director’s newest life-enhancing gem options boats, beats, boards, beers and barrels and a posse of professional surfers, together with Albee Layer, Matt Meola, Bryan Perez, Marcello Castellanos and  professional skateboarder Nora Vasconcellos. Narrated by the affable Selema Masekela, Candy Journey is a heady mixture of tourism promo, surf journey, comedy and love letter to El Salvadore.

A surf/life/ecology movie that can have large enchantment to native audiences comes from one in every of Byron’s personal, Matty Hannon. The Highway to Patagonia is a beautiful visible report of what Matty calls “a bodily and religious odyssey to raised perceive our place in nature”. Matty had 16 years’ expertise travelling and residing on the earth’s most obscure surf spots earlier than setting himself the problem of travelling down the whole west coast of the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

He encounters surfers and fellow travellers, together with two Aussie jackaroos who present him with horses and driving ideas, in addition to shamen, farmers, environmentalists and tribespeople preventing to guard the pure world round them. And he meets the attractive Heather. The lives of those two strangers intertwine for the browsing and highway journey of a lifetime, dealing with bodily and emotional challenges that convey out resilience and expose vulnerability.

This debut characteristic is a surprising success, with excellent pure world images, a singular and compelling soundtrack from Swedish singer/songwriter Daniel Norgren, and a storyline that encompasses First Individuals’s knowledge, ayahuasca, meditation, mountains, and mountainous waves, motorcycle mayhem, masculine sensitivity, and burgeoning love.

The Highway to Patagonia is compelling viewing; usually humorous, all the time awe-inspiring, and immensely uplifting. A candidate for the Greatest Movie Award at BBFF2022, it would stir viewers into considering hitting the highway themselves, for their very own enlightening journey.

Such movies go approach past the “Surf Film” style to incorporate a lot of the human situation, and the Pageant’s different documentaries inform equally consciousness-expanding tales, revealing a lot that’s bizarre about our difficult species.

These excellent characteristic movies are supported all through the Pageant by a variety of quick movies impressed by the surf, from all around the world.

Exterior of the cinema there’s a various and thrilling vary of occasions on supply – from the glamour of the Opening Night time purple carpet welcome to immersive experiences (inside a dome!), talks, workshops and alternatives to fulfill and mingle with a few of modern cinema’s most outstanding creatives. And naturally, the seashore is rarely very far-off. Immerse your self in surprise, and be a part of us in shining gentle in darkness, for 10 days of cinematic celebration.

The 16^th Byron Bay Movie Pageant runs from October 21-30, at Palace Cinemas Byron Bay 

TICKETS SELL FAST SO BOOK EARLY TO AVOID MISSING OUT.