Thursday, April 08, 2010

StokeTIP 55: Go See Local Surf Flicks

Novice StokeTIP 55
Go See Local Surf Flicks

Here in Northern and Central California almost all of us surfers have surfed in Santa Cruz at least once, if not once a month, or every day. The quality of the waves is almost always better than my home breaks in Half Moon Bay and from novice friendly Cowells to highly competetive Hook and the Lane, the place has a lot to offer and further up the coast we got Mavericks break right in my home town of Half Moon Bay.

As you surf more and become familiar with surfing, you will start hearing about "The West Side" and "The East Side." And sooner or later you will become failiar with surfer names like "Flea", "Ratboy" and "Barney." Even if you don't want to hear about them, you will hear about them on local regular news-talk radios and in the front-pages of San Francisco Chronicle or San Jose Mercury news. In many ways, California and surfing are part of our daily life; everyone is influenced by it from the slang we use to what we wear even to work!

As you surf more in Santa Cruz, you will also get to know about the "West side" and "East side" surfing culture you will learn that they often crash, even sometime to the point of physically being violent. So it has always been curious in mind how these different cultures come about.

And of course these things being as culture they invlove people, and every so often our own surfing communities has produced great surfing documentary movies that are prouced often by the very people who grew up within.

Such is the case with the new upcoming documentary film "The Westsiders." The film was produced by Joshua Pomer who grew up with the big 3 names in Santa Cruz West Side surfing scene. Joshua got a hold of portable video camera from his high school and started to shoot videos of his surfing friends and so he knew right from the start to some day tell the story about what it is like to grow up with top surfers and being immersed in the scene. Also very important in the formation of the culture is one dominating character, Vince "The Godfather" Coller who pretty much controlled The Lane and for good or bad, he was the key part of creating the force in the Westside culture to put these surfers and Santa Cruz Stemer Lane on the map. Like a Big Bang, the melting of all forces have created some of the darkest part of the surf culture as well as some of the brightest and innovative breakthoughs in surfing like legitimizing aerials as a surf move and even surfing upside-down inside a barrell and of course the big wave surfing.

The movie is a serious and important documentary about Santa Cruz surfing culture and the history of the West Side. It is a nice and intentional departure from "just surf" type movies where you only see people surfing on the waves for an hour, and it really provides a deeper look inside how it is to grow up in the environment. Interviews include numerous people from the surfing community and partents. Jason has also used his networks of friends to collect interesting home movie clips from the 60's and 70's. Because of this approach the movie can be enjoyed by both surfers and as well as non-surfers.

My words are not going to be adequate to describe all what I have expeirenced at the preview, but one thing for sure, you being a part of the surfing culture today, you must go see this and many other surfing documentary movies produced by our very own local film makers who also surf.

The movie was selected and premiers at the Newport Beach Film Fetival on April 24th, 2010 and shown at the Santa Cruz Film Festival on Saturday 5/8 at 6:30 PM (More information about the Santa Cruz Film Festival)

For more information about the movie, here are additional web sites you can try:


Growling Gecko said...

Sounds like an american based remake of the "The Bra Boys"

Unknown said...

Thank you for the info. I have tweeted it. Would be interesting to compare.

WaveFin said...


You can see it here.

The Original Adjustable Wing Twin Fin

Thank you