Film News

2nd Annual Surf Film Festival hosts four Hawai‘i premieres

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 29 June, 2009 : - - Honolulu -- Working with Eric and Jackie Walden of the gallery-cum-surf boutique Chinatown Boardroom and local filmmaker Lance Arinaga, Film Curator Gina Caruso has put together another stellar lineup of surf films that includes four Hawai‘i premieres.

From a surfing violinist looking to connect his two passions to a survey of female surf history, the festival offers films that break out of the exotic-locale wave-travelogue mold.

Opening night on July 10 will feature free Blue Moon and Coors Light beer, courtesy of co-sponsor Contrast Magazine, and the global cuisine of Da Spot—their overflowing plates of dishes from around the world (Egyptian chicken to Thai curries) are just $7. Moviegoers can come at 6 p.m. for dinner-and-a-movie night.

Then Oahu’s Lance Arinaga will introduce his film Icons2. Expected to attend opening night are pros Hank Gaskell, Jun Jo, Daniel Jones, Mikala Jones, Jason Shibata (who is also the marketing director of Contrast magazine), and Nick Mita.

Closing night on July 24 will feature free Primo beer, courtesy of Chinatown Boardroom, followed by the Hawaii premiere of Dear and Yonder: Daring Stories of Ladies United by the Sea. Da Spot will again be selling food, and doors open at 6 p.m.

The Academy will raffle off a prized Wade Tokoro surfboard. Everyone who purchases a ticket will be entered in the raffle. And if they get additional tickets if they purchase an Academy membership. The higher level the membership, the more tickets. Student ($20): 1 ticket; national/neighbor island ($40): 3 tickets; individual ($55): 5 tickets; family ($95): 10 tickets; subscriber ($150): 20 tickets; Society of Academy Fellows ($1,500): 50 tickets.

The festival coincides with the exhibition Bartlett in Hawaii, part of the year-long exhibition series A Hawaiian Master Revisited: Charles Bartlett at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Bartlett, an Englishman who settled in Hawaii in 1917 and remained here until his death in 1940, made alluring prints of surf scenes, including his iconic Surf-Riders. Honolulu., depicting four surfers on koa boards on a Waikiki wave. Students of surf history won’t want to miss these scenes of old-school surf.

WHEN: July 10-24

WHERE: Doris Duke Theatre

WHAT: 2nd Annual Surf Film Festival

INFO: 532-8700, honoluluacademy.org

HAWAII PREMIERE

ICONS2

Director: Lance Arinaga

Bali, Philippines, California, Tahiti, Hawaii, 2009, 40 mins.

Icons2 features an artistic, aggressive editing style, and innovatively uses still photography. Local boy Lance Arinaga is also the photo editor for Honolulu-based magazine Contrast. The Hawaii-heavy cast includes Kelly Slater, Kekoa Bacalso, Bruce Irons, Joel Parkinson, Mikala Jones, Mick Fanning, Dusty Payne, Hank Gaskell, Dustin Cuizon, Fred Patacchia, Jason Shibata, Jamie O’brien, Joel Centeio, Jordy Smith, Dane Reynolds, Carissa Moore, Jun Jo, Shane Dorian.

• Friday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m.

HAWAII PREMIERE

THE PRESENT

Director: Thomas Campbell

West Africa, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand,

California and Hawaii, 2009, 74 mins.

In the late ’90s a few young, independent filmmakers used vintage Bolex 16mm film cameras to document modern-day surfing in an old-school style. Director Thomas Campbell is among a small number of purists using film instead of video. According to him, The Present’s basic premise is, “Taking a view into our lives as surfers on this planet, and showing that this moment—in our surfing lives right now—is a gift.” All of this happens to the backdrop of a timeless, down-tempo soundtrack that has been a hallmark of Campbell’s other works. (Adapted from www.trimyourlifeaway.com.)

• Saturday, July 11 and Sunday, July 12 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.

• Tuesday, July 15 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

HAWAII PREMIERE

MUSICA SURFICA

Director: Mick Sowry

Australia, 2009,  (Nicole, running time will be to you tomorrow)

This stunning documentary follows world-renowned violinist Richard Tognetti as he explores new boundaries in experimental surfing and music. The life-long surfer also happens to be artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and in Musica Surfica, he teams up with influential surfer Derek Hynd, who is also interested in the connection between surfing and art. They are joined by top surfers and musicians on remote King Island in the Southern Ocean, where they ride boards based on 300-year-old Hawaiian designs, or on unconventionally finned surfboards, for one of the first “finless” surfing events since the days of the ancient Hawaiians. At the same time, Richard and surfer members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, along with guest musicians,  perform for the people of King Island. It is an unlikely, electrifying combination of music, which has since toured the world to much acclaim.

• Wednesday, July 15 and Thursday, July 15 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

SIPPING JETSTREAMS

Director: Taylor Steele

Morocco, Hong Kong, Italy, Indonesia, Egypt, Japan, Cuba, and Barbados, 2007, 40 mins.

Several years ago, fed up with traveling to the same old places to document surfing, photographer Dustin Humphrey and filmmaker Taylor Steele had an epiphany. Though they’d spent much of their lives in airplanes, hotels, rental cars, and aboard boats, had they really seen the world? What was beyond Hawaii, Australia, and Tahiti? The pair scrapped the old surf-travel strategy of “fly in, surf, fly out” in favor of true cultural exploration in places like Cuba and Egypt. They were “sipping jetstreams.”

• Friday, July 17 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

• Saturday, July 18 at 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.

THE GREEN IGUANA

Director: Jack McCoy

Australia, Hawaii, and Indonesia, 1991, 60 mins. with extra material

The Green Iguana is the second film director Jack McCoy made for Gordon Merchant, the owner and founder of Billabong (the first film was Bunyip Dreaming). The film stars Michael “Munga” Barry, Luke Egan, Sunny Garcia, Mark “Occy” Occhilupo, and introduces Brendan “Margo” Margieson and Peter King. All of the action takes place on the back of an iguana who lies in the water and creates little islands from the spikes along his tail. Creating a fun-filled, action-packed surf adventure was McCoy’s objective, and from all reports, he succeeded on location in Australia, Hawaii and Indonesia. McCoy writes, “I filmed every shot on 16mm film and it’s all rockin’ and no talkin’! “

• Sunday, July 19 at 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.

• Tuesday, July 21 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

• Wednesday, July 22 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

HAWAII PREMIERE

DEAR & YONDER: DARING STORIES OF LADIES UNITED BY THE SEA Directors: Tiffany Campbell and Andria Lessler

Australia, French Polynesia, California, Indonesia, Mexico & Arizona, 2009, 70 mins.

Take a ride with a dynamic cast of famed female surfers such as Coco Ho, Sofia Mulanovich, Kassia Meador and Silvana Lima, along with lesser-known ocean-goers like surfer/sailor Liz Clark and surfer/shaper Ashley Lloyd. The film uncovers the history of women’s surfing, from pre-missionary Hawaiian koa boarders to 20th-century pioneers such as Linda Benson, Rell Sunn and Margo Oberg. The film includes original art by Nat Russell and animation by artist Lori D., and was shot by cinematographers Thomas Campbell (The Present), Oahu-based Dave Homcy (Surfwise, Sliding Liberia), Scott Soens and Bali Strickland. The soundtrack includes field recordings from French Polynesia and original compositions by leading indie musicians. According to directors Tiffany Campbell and Andria Lessler, “Our hope is for the depth and beauty of the film to traverse perceived boundaries…Dear & Yonder is our way of giving something back to the thing we love.”

• Thursday, July 23 and Friday, July 24 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

About the Honolulu Academy of Arts: The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an encyclopedic art museum founded in 1927, and is Hawaii’s largest private presenter of visual arts programs with a permanent collection of more than 50,000 works of art. The Academy is the only art museum in Hawaii accredited by the American Association of Museums.

The Academy's permanent collection includes more than 20,000 works of Asian art, with galleries dedicated to Japan, China, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The collection is especially strong in Chinese and Japanese paintings, Korean ceramics, Buddhist and Shinto sculpture, South and Southeast Asian sculpture and decorative arts, and textiles from across Asia. The crown jewel of the Academy’s Asian art collection is the James A. Michener Collection of more than 10,000 Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, the third largest collection of its kind in the United States.

The Academy’s permanent collection also includes Europe and American paintings, sculptures, decorative arts and textiles, as well as more than 15,000 works on paper comprising the largest concentration of works in the European and American collection ranging in date from the Renaissance to the present. Among highlights are major impressionist, post-impressionist and early modernist paintings by Georges Braque, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and James McNeill Whistler.  Significant works of art from the Twentieth-Century to the present include paintings and sculptures by Lee Bontecou, Alexander Calder, Leon Golub, Philip Guston, Yan Pei Ming, Isamu Noguchi, Nam June Paik, John Singer Sargent, David Smith, Masami Teraoka, and Won Ju Lim.

- Advertisement -

www.honoluluacademy.org

What's your take on this?
Post your thoughts: SV Forum

New Survey: Map Surfing’s future 

Check the latest Hawaii Surf Reports and Forecasts
More Hawaiian & USA Surfing News available here

New! B2B News ASBE-Surf   |  Receive News-Alerts

Ikaika Ito

Film - Surfersvillage