Don't miss standout documentary 'We the Surfers' at the Ocean Film Festival 2025

The Ocean Movie Pageant 2025 highlights highly effective tales on browsing, conservation, cave diving, and the ocean’s therapeutic energy. Do not miss ‘We the Surfers’, a standout entry in regards to the rising surf neighborhood in Liberia, and the way the Robertsport Surf Membership makes use of the ocean for therapeutic

This yr’s Ocean Movie Pageant 2025, on tour within the UK by November, is a good night time out for anybody fascinated with what goes on above, round, and below the water. Although it’s mild on crusing, the programme brings highly effective movies about browsing, oceanography, cave diving, and extra to the small display.

Don’t miss ‘We the Surfers,’ (dir. Arthur Bourbon), the competition’s standout entry on the grassroots browsing neighborhood on the Robertsport Surf Membership in Liberia.

The movie displays the transformative energy of excellent storytelling for the broader ocean neighborhood, and reveals the therapeutic energy of the oceans in its truest type.

‘We the Surfers’ was the Ocean Movie Pageant 2025’s finest documentary

‘We the Surfers’ is the type of storytelling different ocean-focused documentaries aspire to. It’s well-paced, well-shot, and options compelling interviews.

Extra importantly, it doesn’t cease at being well-executed; it desires to be helpful.

The crux of this movie is the work occurring off-screen, on the Robertsport Surf Membership.

‘The Robertsport Surf Membership is not only a sporting initiative, but in addition an financial and social challenge,’ says director Arthur Bourbon. ‘It helps the youth entry browsing gear, creates jobs and supplies scholarships. This growth round tourism and browsing is managed by locals, for locals.’

With the assistance of funds and gear (largely boards) from NGO Defend the Slide and different organisations, Robertsport Surf Membership presents scholarships, gear, and surf remedy to native youths.

It provides native surfers employment, organises seaside clean-ups, and presents youth a spot to assemble and discover neighborhood and therapeutic by recreation.

‘Browsing just isn’t warfare, it’s togetherness,’ says Eli Brown, who works and surfs on the membership.

It’s additionally an area by which younger women can follow the game alongside the boys, achieve confidence, and really feel empowered.

Liberian girls nonetheless face marginalisation and rampant home abuse, says younger surfer Religion Kulu in an interview. The waves are a spot they’ll really feel protected, and start to carve out their very own house.

‘We the Surfers,’ reveals the ocean’s potential as a pressure for liberation, empowerment, and therapeutic. Hardly ever is the transformative energy of spending time on the water as clear as it’s on this movie.

Ocean tales on and off display

Liberia’s current historical past (1989-2003) is an advanced material to combine right into a sports activities documentary, however ‘We the Surfers’ doesn’t shrink back from the duty.

It touches on the affect of 20 years of civil warfare, which devastated the nation and noticed 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 deaths and 1000’s of kid troopers concerned.

Amongst these is Alfred Lomax, whose interviews spotlight each the lasting trauma of the battle, and the way browsing has been an escape from it.

Lomax has been included in different browsing documentaries (‘Sliding Liberia’ and ‘Water Get No Enemy,’ predecessor to ‘We the Surfers.’) He gave Anthony Bourdain a browsing lesson in a 2010 episode of Bourdain’s beloved sequence No Reservations, has appeared on CNN, and is broadly recognised as the primary surfer of Liberia.

But, because the movie factors out, there’s a disconnect between the accolades and on-screen appearances and the truth of his each day life, the place he nonetheless struggles with the enduring results of his trauma.

One other on-screen / off-screen disconnect is mirrored in Samon Commey, a proficient Liberian surfer and hopeful champion, who on the time of filming didn’t personal his personal board and offered bracelets on the seaside to get by.

Their interviews, like pictures of the membership’s one-to-watch youth prodigy, Raegan, browsing seamlessly on a plank of unshaped wooden, spotlight how heroic sports activities media narratives can usually gloss over the each day realities of the very athletes they imply to showcase.

The power of ‘We the Surfers’ lies precisely in its willingness to interact with this hole. In taking an sincere look, the challenge hopes to assist the expansion and autonomy of Robertsport Surf Membership and to ask surf tourism to Liberia.

It’s a documentary in service of its topic, and never the opposite method round.

‘We the surfers’ can be accessible to lease on-line. Get entangled at wethesurfers.com

Different tales from the Ocean Movie Pageant 2025

The Ocean Movie Pageant 2025 additionally highlighted different voices from across the ocean neighborhood, and confirmed passionate people whose love for and lives on the ocean might resonate with sailors.

Two ‘outsider’ browsing narratives that includes kooky protagonists present how some surfers reside the ocean on their very own phrases.

Cornish surfer Tom Lowe, from the movie ‘Let Me Dwell’. Picture: Keith Malloy / Ocean Movie Pageant 2025.

In ‘Astronaut within the Ocean’ (Bimarian Movies), bodyboarder Shane Ackerman balances his ardour for giant wave sand with being a crane-operator by day. ‘Let Me Dwell’ (Keith Malloy) present how big-wave surfer Tom Lowe obtained began in his small Cornish fishing city.

‘Souls’, that includes legends of the Ocean neighborhood like ‘Her Deepness’, oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle and pioneering underwater photographer David Doubilet, obtained a bunch of huge names on display to speak about conservation, although it did little so as to add to the dialog. This entry is made for followers already aware of their particular person contributions to the ocean neighborhood.

‘Orcas within the Arctic’ (Alexandra Johnston & Harriet Murphy), which performs like an prolonged industrial for Napapijiri, who sponsored the quick, nods to ongoing analysis actions in regards to the animals.

‘Aquaballet’ (Alex Voyer) is unapologetically aesthetic. Freediver Marianne Aventurier dives gracefully with marine life, set to music.

Free diver Marianne Aventurier in ‘Aquaballet’. Picture: Alex Voyer.

The true story, nonetheless, is the time it should have taken to build up these pictures of marine life, and to doc Aventurier’s interactions with them.

‘Diving into Darkness’ (Nays Baghai) takes a biographical have a look at cave diving pioneer Jill Heinerth, who has spent her profession exploring the earth’s underwater cave and tunnel methods, which she calls its ‘veins.

It’s a motivating highlight on an eminent feminine explorer, although hair elevating recounts of Heinerth’s shut brushes with dying do elevate the traditional query that comes with nature and excessive sports activities documentaries, of why we really feel the necessity to put ourselves in that place within the first place.

Nonetheless from ‘Diving into Darkness’, dir. Nays Baghai. Picture: Nays Baghai / Ocean Movie Pageant 2025.

A attainable reply comes from photographer David Doubilet in ‘Souls’.

‘It’s curiosity, insatiable curiosity,’ he says plainly. ‘That’s what motivates me, and everybody who works within the sea.’

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Curious? Right here’s how one can watch the Ocean Movie Pageant 2025

Catch the Ocean Movie Pageant 2025 programme to see what else is occurring on the water.

The competition is touring the UK by the top of November. For dates close to you, go to oceanfilmfestival.co.uk/tickets.

Earlier editions of the competition are for lease on-line at oceanfilmfestival.co.uk/digital.

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