LS/FF has just dropped the line up for the 12th Annual London Surf / Film Festival x Finisterre hosted 23 – 25 November 2023 at Riverside Studios, and it’s an epic celebration of the very best of surf culture.
Bringing to the UK the very best surf movies from across the globe including 4 World, 2 European and 8 UK Premieres taking in big waves, tall tales and toes on the nose, adventures to the coldest reaches, stories that stick a pin in ephemeral moments of perfection, documentaries that spark debate, surfing that blows the fins out and destinations that blow the mind – these films represent the pinnacle of contemporary surfing in the here and now.
Accompanied by Q+A’s and ‘Audiences with…’ some of the world’s most relevant exciting surf creatives including style-master and explorer Mike Lay, chargers Connor Maguire and Sandy Kerr plus a raft of game changing filmmakers including Chris McClean, Jon Aspuru, Rebecca Coley, Maddie Meddings, Clem Mcinerney and Spencer Frost plus a special session hosted by cultural commentator Looking Sideways’ Matt Barr, a very special gallery show and more… you’re not going to want to miss this!
The lineup includes
UK PREMIERE: Mundaka.
Presented by legendary surf adventurer Kepa Acero this must see documentary combining archive footage and interview with legends takes us back to a moment where AI, The Goat and the hard charging locals tucked into the perfect day at this hallowed spot, a magical session that would leave a permanent mark in European surf history. Celebrating that special convergence of tide, wind, swell and time, this triple bill gala opening is an ode to that elusive moment we all chase: RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
UK PREMIERE: CORNERS OF THE EARTH – KAMCHATKA
A film by Spencer Frost & Guy Williment. A journey to the frigid outer reaches of Kamchatka. After 2 years of planning this was to be the adventure of a lifetime. As the trip got under way, Russia invaded Ukraine changing the political landscape and obstacles faced by the team. With Mi-8 helicopters, skidoos, frozen campsites, and frozen bank accounts, this surf journey quickly became far more than anyone could imagine.
UK PREMIERE: Through the doggy door
Featuring Mason Ho and Sheldon Paishon, this award-winning and intimate documentary follows a surfer’s dream to trade extreme poverty in paradise for the life of a pro surfer and a world of perfect waves. Sheldon Paishon is a talented surfer from Oahu’s Westside. At the age of 12, his family lost their home and lived in a beachside tent for the remainder of his adolescence. Surfing was Sheldon’s escape
Amongst many other films….
Tickets are live priced from £12.50. Evening passes: £20 include entry to a whole night of films plus a free beer from the good folk at Sharp’s… and a few exclusive goodies! Evening passes are limited, always sell out and when they’re gone, they’re gone!
“We founded LS/FF in in 2011, dreamt up around our kitchen table in the deep mid-winter, after a few good waves,” says Festival Director Demi Taylor.
“The aim was to gather together the UK surf community to share the stoke, the storytelling, the culture and it’s grown to be so much more than that. Over the past decade, we’ve had the privilege of making friends and films, bringing some 250 of the finest surf movie premieres to the UK, sharing them on the big screen as they were intended to be enjoyed – accompanied by a packed crowd of likeminded folk. It’s become an international must attend for purveyors of the glide and surf culture aficionados alike. See you there!”
C-Skins how announced NuWave wetsuit launch for Spring 2024 ‘for every budget, and every person…’
Press release..
“We’re stoked to be introducing NuWave: a full range of natural rubber wetsuits. For every budget, and every person, there will be the option to choose a wetsuit with minimal environmental impact. We are making this available for the many, not the few, as soon as possible. Offering a natural rubber alternative is the latest step forward in our on-going efforts to make the best possible wetsuits.
“In the lead up to the product launch we’ll be telling the full R&D story behind NuWave in a series of articles on our website. For now, you can check out other key developments we’ve made to lower our impact via our Planet page (https://c-skins.com/blogs/planet).
As many of you will know there has been a huge return of he magnificent tuna to the UK and Irish waves over the last few years. Local fishermen have been really restrained in protecting them and indeed helped in the scientific and conservation efforts, but now the tina face decimation on the edge of protected waters.
“There is now a fleet of 35 long liners, with a total of 2,100 miles of lines and hundreds of thousands of baited hooks, waiting for the blue fin tuna we’ve seen – and studied – off our coast for the last four or five years. Marine conservation is a global game, and only works if all play by certain rules, and understand that every reproduce is finite.”
“This represents an industrial scale, opportunistic plundering of a glorious and precious species that is on the brink of a comeback from near oblivion. Oceanic animals know no barriers, something we as global citizens must surely try to understand if there’s to be any hope…”
This isn’t ‘fishing’ any more and in the long term it’s commercial suicide.
France wins first Para Surfing Team World Championship, England win first ever ISA team medal, the copper
Para Surfing’s winningest woman Victoria Feige (CAN) earns fifth gold medal, extends own record
Golds for Sponge (Wales) and Charlotte Banfield (England)
Silver medals for both Melissa Reid and Zoe Smith (England)
Norway’s first ever ISA medal won by Ismaël Guilliorit
Performance levels were pushed, new records were set and history was made on a phenomenal day of surfing that saw fourteen World Champions crowned in Surf City USA to close competition at the 2023 ISA World Para Surfing Championship (WSPC).
France claimed their first WPSC team gold medal, to join with their team wins across all other current ISA competitions. USA took the silver medal, Brazil, bronze. England won copper, their first ever ISA team medal, largely thanks to Charlotte Banfield’s victory in Women’s Stand 3.
“It’s really, really exciting,” Banfield said. “I think the team we’ve got this year is the strongest we’ve ever had, and not only is it a strong team, it’s a supportive team.”
Three multiple World Champions added to their medal counts. Davi Teixeira (BRA) and Marta Paço (POR) each earned their third gold medal, while Victoria Feige (CAN) further extended her own record, collecting her fifth. This year however, para surfing’s winningest woman faced her strongest competition yet.
“Seeing the level rise, it’s so sweet to have a victory, but seeing the movement rise is probably the best part,” Feige said. “It’s also so empowering, because I feel like I’m not alone, there’s other girls in the world with disabilities like mine who’ve got that fire to really push the level.”
New World Champions were crowned in six divisions. Aaron Paulk (HAW), Kirk Watson (AUS) and Sarah Almagro (ESP) each won their first gold medals after multiple previous finals, Laurie Phipps (FRA) claimed gold in her second, and Nagisa Ikegami (JPN) and Joel Taylor (AUS) topped the podium in their very first event.
“[This has been] the best experience of my life,” Taylor said. “I’ve waited for 30 years. I’ve dreamed of being a World Champion from when Eppo (Michael Eppelstun) won the first world title for Australia in bodyboarding. I worked a long time as a bodyboarder and then I had my injury and then over 20 years out of the water and 12 months later, as a para surfer, it’s mind-blowing.”
Alelí Medina (PUR), Rafael Lueders (BRA) and Llywelyn ‘Sponge Williams (WAL) each backed up their inaugural victories in 2022. After winning her first gold medal in the assisted Prone 2 classification in 2022, Emma Dieters (AUS) collected her second in her new classification, the unassisted Prone 1. 2020 Stand 2 gold medalist Roberto Pino (BRA) earned his first gold medal in the Stand 1 classification.
Norway’s Ismael Guilliorit returned to competition after six years away to make his first Final and win his nation their first ever ISA medal.
“For the Norwegian people, I opened the door,” Guilliorit said. “So now they can believe that we are able to take some good waves at the competition.”
ISA President Fernando Aguerre said:
“Many years ago, when we started with the first Para Surfing World Championship, it was an act of faith, an act of hope, thinking that this could become the beginning of a new era for surfing, an era in which we open our arms and our competitions to all surfers, regardless of their physical abilities, and it has been wonderful.
“What a week Huntington Beach has served for us, incredible, unforgettable. Of course in the back of all our minds is the hope, it might happen, that the LA 2028 Paralympic Games will finally include Para Surfing.”
RESULTS
Team
Gold – France
Silver – USA
Bronze – Brazil
Copper – England
Men’s Vision Impairment 2
Gold – Aaron Paulk (HAW)
Silver – Roy Calderon (CRC)
Bronze – Pierrot Gagliano (FRA)
Copper – Jack Jackson (AUS)
“I love surfing so much. Therefore, for this episode, I naturally teamed up with surfer William Aliotti, my favourite free surfer and former team mate. The idea was to explore the similarities & connections between snowboarding and surfing by recreating some iconic moves on both side, in an artistic way.
Both riders are perfectly mirroring each other’s moves, on the same element – water – while playfully shifting between its frozen and liquid states. A vision magnified through a pure and simple black and white lens, accompanied by a dreamy soundtrack created specifically for the occasion by Dark Sky.” – Victor Daviet
