Waveriders
plays in Celestial Cinema Wednesday
Celestial Cinema Program
(2008, 80 mins)
35mm
Hawaii Premiere
Directed By: Joel Conroy
Producer: Margo Harkin
Screenwriter: Lauren Davies
Cast: Richard Fitzgerald, Gabe Davies, Kelly Slater, Kevin Naughton, Drew Kampion, Arthur C. Verge
Screenwriter: Lauren Davies
Cast: Richard Fitzgerald, Gabe Davies, Kelly Slater, Kevin Naughton, Drew Kampion, Arthur C. Verge
This Film Shows as part of the Celestial Cinema Wednesday program, screening order for this program is as follows:
8:00pm Highwater (preceded by Windfisherman)
10:00pm The Women and that Waves
11:00pm Waveriders
Children 12 years old and younger FREE for this evening.
I used to have a poster of Ireland in my classroom, a coastal shot with a ruined stone castle and, way in the distance, a good-looking surf break. My students would look at that and say, "Surf Ireland!" I used to laugh and tell them about the Irishman I once met who said to me, "Why should I learn how to swim‾ It would just take me that much longer to drown!"
Turns out, the kids were right. As Waverider awesomely demonstrates, the "Land of Saints and Scholars" is also a land of extraordinarily shapely waves, especially along the cliffy, Atlantic-facing western shore that gets thrashed by swells from many directions. At one point in this film Kelly Slater, having just won his eighth world surfing championship, comes to Ireland to chill out—literally. After shooting his way through any number of dark Celtic tubes, Slater declares that Ireland is a "cold paradise."
Despite Slater's presence, this beautifully shot surf film is not about American champions or international pros. It's a tribute to "soul surfing" as practiced by the native sons of an unlikely place. Chief of these is Richard Fitzgerald from County Donegal, one-time championship competitor who gave up the pro life to open a surf shop and hunt for undiscovered breaks in the West of Ireland—"those gnarly, vicious hollow slabs you can find in every nook and cranny of the Irish coast."
Fitzgerald is joined here by Gabe Davies, Britain's most successful big-wave surfer, and the three Malloy Brothers (Chris, Keith, and Dan), Irish-Americans from Ventura CA who joined Jack Johnson in a filmmaking venture called The Moonshine Conspiracy. (These young surfers all appeared in Dana Brown's 1995 film Step Into Liquid.) The film also spends time with older-generation mentor figure Kevin Naughton, an Irish-American who famously fled the sixties California beach scene to travel the world with nothing but a board, a backpack, and a compass. Naughton wound up in his ancestral homeland after a decade of life on the surf trail. The Malloy brothers freely admit to "riding Naughton's coattails" by pursuing "feral surfing" to the ends of the Earth.
No doubt the North Atlantic is one of those ends. At the climax of Waveriders an enormous swell descends on the coast of Mullaghmore, County Sligo, and we watch these crazy Irishmen towing in to 60-foot bonecrushers.
History provides another dimension to this film as it presents the life story of George Freeth, a hapa Hawaiian-Irishman born 1883 in Honolulu. At a time when very few people anywhere were surfing, Freeth brought the sport from Hawai‘i to California, established the practice of modern lifesaving, received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery, coached Duke Kahanamoku, then died of influenza at age 35.
Five years in the making, Waveriders won the Audience Award when it screened at the 2008 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. It also received an ‘Outstanding Achievement in Film Making’ award at Newport Beach FF 2009.
Erin goes off, bra!
8:00pm Highwater (preceded by Windfisherman)
10:00pm The Women and that Waves
11:00pm Waveriders
Children 12 years old and younger FREE for this evening.
I used to have a poster of Ireland in my classroom, a coastal shot with a ruined stone castle and, way in the distance, a good-looking surf break. My students would look at that and say, "Surf Ireland!" I used to laugh and tell them about the Irishman I once met who said to me, "Why should I learn how to swim‾ It would just take me that much longer to drown!"
Turns out, the kids were right. As Waverider awesomely demonstrates, the "Land of Saints and Scholars" is also a land of extraordinarily shapely waves, especially along the cliffy, Atlantic-facing western shore that gets thrashed by swells from many directions. At one point in this film Kelly Slater, having just won his eighth world surfing championship, comes to Ireland to chill out—literally. After shooting his way through any number of dark Celtic tubes, Slater declares that Ireland is a "cold paradise."
Despite Slater's presence, this beautifully shot surf film is not about American champions or international pros. It's a tribute to "soul surfing" as practiced by the native sons of an unlikely place. Chief of these is Richard Fitzgerald from County Donegal, one-time championship competitor who gave up the pro life to open a surf shop and hunt for undiscovered breaks in the West of Ireland—"those gnarly, vicious hollow slabs you can find in every nook and cranny of the Irish coast."
Fitzgerald is joined here by Gabe Davies, Britain's most successful big-wave surfer, and the three Malloy Brothers (Chris, Keith, and Dan), Irish-Americans from Ventura CA who joined Jack Johnson in a filmmaking venture called The Moonshine Conspiracy. (These young surfers all appeared in Dana Brown's 1995 film Step Into Liquid.) The film also spends time with older-generation mentor figure Kevin Naughton, an Irish-American who famously fled the sixties California beach scene to travel the world with nothing but a board, a backpack, and a compass. Naughton wound up in his ancestral homeland after a decade of life on the surf trail. The Malloy brothers freely admit to "riding Naughton's coattails" by pursuing "feral surfing" to the ends of the Earth.
No doubt the North Atlantic is one of those ends. At the climax of Waveriders an enormous swell descends on the coast of Mullaghmore, County Sligo, and we watch these crazy Irishmen towing in to 60-foot bonecrushers.
History provides another dimension to this film as it presents the life story of George Freeth, a hapa Hawaiian-Irishman born 1883 in Honolulu. At a time when very few people anywhere were surfing, Freeth brought the sport from Hawai‘i to California, established the practice of modern lifesaving, received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery, coached Duke Kahanamoku, then died of influenza at age 35.
Five years in the making, Waveriders won the Audience Award when it screened at the 2008 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. It also received an ‘Outstanding Achievement in Film Making’ award at Newport Beach FF 2009.
Erin goes off, bra!
www.waveridersthefilm.com
Not yet MPAA rated.
This film is included on the Celestial Cinema Wednesday ticket.
Not yet MPAA rated.
This film is included on the Celestial Cinema Wednesday ticket.
Screening Schedule
Wed, Jun 17th
Celestial Cinema- Wailea
Celestial Cinema- Wailea
$20.00
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