FILMS from the beach return to Cape Town with the annual Wavescapes Film Festival, now under way around town.
The festival kicked off last week with a screening at the Desmond Tutu Youth Centre on Thursday and a beach screening on Clifton’s Fourth Beach.
The films will be screened at the Brass Bell in Kalk Bay from December 9 to 12 and the Labia on Orange from December 13 to 17.
There are also some new events to look out for.
The Wavescape Slide Night on Thursday, December 13, in Superette, at the Woodstock Exchange, is a series of 10-minute slide presentations by 10 presenters who are thought leaders, artists, craftsmen, athletes, activists, scientists and personalities intimately connected to the ocean.
Look out for National Sea Rescue Institute media man and former Independent Newspapers photo-grapher Andrew Ingram and his selection of images from sea rescues, or film-maker Damon Foster bring-ing an astounding new perspective on the personalities of predators.
There are 11 short films, and the following features on offer at the cinema:
• Gauchos del Mar: this is the African premiere of a film made by Argentinian brothers Julian and Joaquin Azulay as they followed their dream of surfing the American Pacific.
• Here & Now: 25 film-makers and surfers comment on the world of surfing in a single 24-hour period.
• Immersion: features some of the heaviest waves seen on the big screen, and a collective of chapters on wave-riding disciplines.
• Minds in the Water: Dave Rastovich’s quest to protect dolphins and waves is captured in this film as he travels from the Galapagos to Tonga, and Alaska to Japan;
• North of the Sun: Inge Wegge and Jørn Nyseth Ranum spend nine cold dark months on an Arctic island off the coast of Northern Norway surfing to their hearts’ content.
• Raw: surf porn meets Psycho in this film about the world’s best surfers and most insane waves.
• This Time Tomorrow: Dave Rastovich and Craig Anderson chase a storm across the Pacific Rim, collecting surfers as they go.
• Dear Suburbia: Flavour-of-the-year surf film-maker Kai Neville explores modernity and suburbia through a surfing lens;
• 3Wheels: Follow the antics of three-wheeler racing in Sri Lanka;
• Sally: A couple of surfers moving from the tropics to frigid southern points in search of that wave;
• Sine Qua Non: paints a psychological portrait of the mindset of the most decorated big wave surfer in the world, Greg Long;
• Goddess Island: Washed-up surf photographer Jimmy Reynolds has one last chance to save his career.
• Diamond Light was in My Eyes: three surfers from New York, New Jersey and Chile provide a thought-ful narrative on how surfing pertains to their daily life.
• Desert Rebels: A coming-of-age story that fits into a drive up to Namibia to surf along Skeleton Bay.
• Day at the Pool: what really started the revolution that redefined urban life.
• Code Red: The Tahitian government called off the Billabong Pro, but that didn’t stop the surfers from going into the water on that fateful day.
• Bending Colours: how did Jordi Smith go from teen sensation to world superstar and radical free surfer?
• The Wright Side of Wrong: a journey with Warwick Wright as he travels around the globe.
• Water from the Moon: from the Sumatran jungle, deep inland, comes a wave of brown water.
• Tickets for the films are R35, call 083 509 5106 for more info, or check www.wavescapefestival.com for the full schedule.