Surf Art : photo courtesy Keiko Beatie

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Alma surf festival 2009 surf e’ amour = surf is love!

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 12 August, 2009 : - - One of the largest events on surfing taking place in South America is the Alma Surf Festival 2009. Over the past six years now, this Festival has been gain notoriety as the best life style event highlighting surfing in the southern hemisphere.

Taking place this year in the center of the third largest city in the world and in a large park, almost similar to Central Park in New York City, the Beinal Building in Sao Paulo, Brazil is about the size of three football fields. This Festival has more bells and whistles you could even imagine stimulating the surfing senses and is hosted and produced by the Alma Surf Magazine.

Alma, which translated in Portuguese, means “soul” and the soul of surfing is what brings the passion of the Brazilians and other guest together. The magazine is about twelve years old and this years theme was “Surf E’ Amor“, which means “Surf is Love” and the true love for surfing was apparent in the three day festival.
 
Highlighting the art, photography, writing, film, skateboarding and the music around boarding lifestyle brought together approximately 30,000 people over a three day period. Special guest with shapers from Hawaii Eric Arakawa and Pat Rawson were on hand to share their experience and artistry with the Brazilian surfers.

Also from Hawaii were ocean photographer Clark Little and ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro. Tommy Gurreo came from San Francisco and The Beautiful Girls from Sydney Australia were both outstanding musical guest. Shimabukuro had never played anywhere south of Florida so it was a amazing transformation over the audience.

After two songs he had the soul surfers of Sao Paulo mesmerized with his talented style of music and ended his show with an special rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. Clark Little the shore break photographer from the North Shore of Oahu, had total “Rock Star” status when he screened a 15 minute short film on his work and afterwards had a long line of new found fans lined up for autographs.

His display of his water majestic photography was awe inspiring and Clark’s island style and aloha spirit had Brazilians longing to visit the home of Pipeline and Waimea Bay. The films screened for the Alma Surf Film Festival were a look into the lifestyle, history, spirit and completive nature of surfing. These surf cinema delights were brought to inspire, contemplate and excite with the love of surfing in a myriad of dimensions.

Presented as part of the festival this year were a diverse plate of films that tantalized the love of surf in varied facets. Screened films were: Fly In The Champagne by Matt Beauchesne, Under The Sun by Cyrus Sutton, Alive In Tahiti by Jarrod Tallman, The Present by Thomas Campbell, Heart of the Sea by Charlotte Lagarde, One Track Mind by Chris Malloy and Musica Surfica by Mick Sowry.
 
Jury Member voted the The Present and Musica Surfica as a tie for Best Surf Film. Best Surfer in a Film Dave Rastovich in Under The Sun, Best Soundtrack Alive In Tahiti, Best Waves The Present, Best Photography The Present and Soul Surfer Award went to Rell Sunn the Queen of Makaha for Heart of the Sea. Congratulations to all the filmmakers for their excellent presentations with the Alma Surf Festival Osklen de Cinema.
　
As a tribute to the writers of surf, the incredible library of over 500 publications all part of a private collection of the Publisher of Alma Surf, Romeu Adrinatta was on display for everyone to enjoy. This special collection had Alma attendees sitting down and reading through titles such as Velzy Is Hawk, by Paul Holmes, Mr. Sunset, The Jeff Hackman Story by Phil Jarret, Gregg Noll.

The Art of The Surfboard by Drew Kampion, Morning Glass by Mike Doyle and Surfing The Manual by Jim Kempton. Most of the publications were signed by the writers as the locals poured over the vast array of autobiographies, magazines and non fiction pieces. With over twenty-five brand surf companies on display in an expo setting, it was a consumer cornucopia of what was new in the surf marketplace.

Many of the booth focused on the new up and coming products and had many inter active creative things taking place along side their sponsored professional surfers and skateboarders. As for skateboarding the Festival had a street course, pipes and tunnels set up as a giant pinball game painted by the famous street artist of Brazil. The course was exciting and had the gritty feel of the streets of Rio and Sao Paulo.
 
With so much to offer the surfers and guests of Alma Surf Festival the love did flow in Sao Paulo and Surf E’ Amor had heart, and soul during the days of this fantastic Festival. Much love to the people of Brazil and Alma Surf Magazine for this event sharing the deep passion for surfing the honoring the lifestyle that surrounds it.
 
Next year the Festival dates are set for July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 2010 and plans are already in the works to have some of the icons of the industry on hand to celebrate the love of surfing once again.

www.almasurf.com.br
 
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Keiko Beatie

Surf Art - Surfersvillage