Hi all,
Went along to the Australian Surf Movie Festival glittering premiere event last night. The ever youthful Tim Bonython and his hardy band of co-conspirators were buzzing about as what seemed to me to be a pretty good size crowd milled about in the foyer as we waited to get to our seats.
Tim warms up the crowd at the Premiere
Tim took to the microphone and worked his way through a longish list of sponsors, supporters, advertisers, etc (what you have to do in these straightened times if you want to show surf movies in actual theatres instead of just pumping ‘em out on DVD). In due course the lights were dimmed and we got to see a couple more promo-y things (the Surfrider Foundation one is particularly clever) before Tim pushed the play button on THE WAVES!
He’s taken an interesting approach this year and has put together a whole bunch of relatively short clips each of which has a tight focus on its subject. Naturally the technical side of it is all good – clean, sharp cinematography, pacey editing and high quality surfing. Music selection, well I guess that depends on what you like. I thought it was generally pretty good.
I think all but two of the sequences are purely Australian waves (extremely heavy Australian waves), and one of those was on Bali, so, it’s kinda as near to Australian waves as you can get without being Australian waves – if you know what I mean.
It was also good to see the folks behind the quite remarkable Surfaid International getting a real push along. Great people doing great work.
You get to see some seriously demented waves at various remote and not so remote (eg Ours/Yours) spots from around Australia. Mr. K. Abberton’s work gets a fair amount of exposure in this regard. Impressive the sort of thing the human body can withstand.
I didn’t keep track of exactly how many clips we saw, but it was enough to keep us entertained for a couple hours or so. Given the numerous rounds of applause and the number of people coming up to Tim after the show to thank him, I’d have to say that most people agreed with me that it was another great ASMF.
Now then… I’ve got a few more tickets to give away…
First up is a pair for the Palm Beach RSL this Saturday 21st March at 8 pm,
(+ Special feature of “all time” North Avalon from the swell on the 25th August)
Second is for two pairs to the show at Cronulla Cinemas on Sunday 22nd March 4.30 pm
To get the tix, you just have to be the first person to tell me what section of RealSurf was reinstated after a long absence in just the last week. Your clue is here.
Please use our feedback form to submit your answer.
And, just to get the stoke level happening, a few more pics from the show
