The Inaugural O’Neill Aotearoa Surf Film Festival is in Raglan this weekend with some great new movies.
Celebrating surf cinema and the art of wave riding, the O’Neill Aotearoa Surf Film Festival (ASFF) is the first dedicated surf film competition in New Zealand to be held in March 2013. This 5 week festival will run in true kiwi fashion, taking a curated selection of international surf feature films, documentaries and short films on a summer roadtrip to coastal towns celebrating the best of surf culture, surf cinema and our connection with the environment.
“We are very excited to establish the festival and have been blown away by the calibre of films submitted to the competition. To have such high quality national and international films has mean’t the screening panel have their work cut out for them”. Says festival director Nick Stevenson. “We are lucky to have some amazing partners on board to help us bring the festival to the NZ surfing community and its shaping up to be an amazing event.”
After the successful main 3 day festival in Mount Maunganui at Bay City Cinemas in the heart of Mount Maunganui, the festival is now taking a Coastal Tour. Hitting the road with a selection of the award winning films for a ‘best of festival’ will be on nationwide tour encompassing the coastal communities of New Zealand. The Tour will run for 5 weeks through till late April 2013 to cover all the screening events taking in Raglan at the Old School Arts Centre and other towns with a strong surfing community.
SURF MOVIES at the Old School – 6pm North of the sun | 8pm Bending Colours
Surf Festival Movies: Sat 23rd at the Old School: 2 sessions 6pm and 8pm. (Bonus deal for 2 sessions $25)
6pm FEATURE MOVIE:
$15 North Of The Sun, 46 minutes (Norway)
Director: Inge Wegge and Jørn Nyseth Ranum
Producer: Anne Bergseng
Production Company: Filmhuset ASInge Wegge (25) and Jørn Ranum (22) spent nine months of cold, Norwegian winter in the isolated and uninhabited bay of a remote, arctic island by the coast of Northern-Norway, facing nothing but the vast Atlantic Ocean. There they built a cabin out of driftwood and other cast-off materials that washed up on shore, and ate expired food the stores would otherwise have thrown away. But the boys brought with them two items of utmost importance: Their surfboards – perhaps their biggest motivation for the arctic adventure. Because the remote bay holds a well kept secret; Some of the worlds finest surfing waves.
Short Films before feature: Uncommon Ideals, Away, Nature Is The Canvas We Destroy
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8pm Feature Movie $15
Bending Colours, 38 minutes (Australia)
Director: Kai Neville
Producer: Kai Neville and Rick Riffici
Bending Colours takes a distorted look at professional surfer Jordy Smith, changing the audience’s perspective on what form a surfing film can take. Filmed on location in Indonesia, Australia, Cape Town South Africa, Reunion, Tahiti, Puerto Rico, France, and Hawaii. Red Bull Media House and Kai Neville Studio dissolve perceptions of movement on the superhighway of performance surfing. Bending Colours is the year-long journey of surfing icon Jordy Smith, one of those rare athletes who delivers on the promises he offered as a teenage prodigy.
Short Films before feature: A Neo Modern Aesthetic, Beyond The Scars, Upcycling, Tipping Barrels
Ar Raglan Old School Arts Centre, Stewart St, Raglan. Reservations: http://www.asff.co.nz/festival-schedule/raglan/ or buy tickets at the door, one hour before start times.
Yummy treats and also cash bar operating.