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LAPPING UP THE BASQUE COUNTRY
San Sebastian's 'Surfilm Festibal' showcases eclectic mix of waveriding flicks
By:
Jamie Brisick/jamiebrisick.com, Captions: Niegà/www.niega.org
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July 22, 2009
10028 visits
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There's a lot to like about the Basque Country:
Mundaka, Guethary, Aritz Aranburu, incredibly cool wool berets, 25-foot outer reef lefthanders that start in Spain and end in France, seven-course meals washed down with strong cider poured from an elevation of three feet by cleavage-heavy waitresses who resemble Penelope Cruz.
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Their passion for surfing, the way they'd shaped their lives around riding waves, and their sharp wit and biting bullshit detectors reminded me of the surfers I grew up with in Southern California. And then there was the huge DIY/indie spirit. They gravitated more to Morning of the Earth than the newest, hottest, fins-in-your-face surf vid. They were often covered in foam dust or spray paint or olive oil. They drove muted VW kombis with beds in the back and eschewed SUVs, particularly of the black and shiny sort. So when my dear pal Sancho Rodriguez, co-director of the Amstel Surfilm Festibal, invited me to be a judge in this year's Short Film Festival, I did not hesitate. I understood the subtext: eat like a king, drink like a parched prince, maybe catch a wave or two, and view twenty fun, five-minutes-or-less films and pick a winner. The colourful lightboard from Pascal Schneider on Vimeo. The Amstel Surfilm Festibal is an extraordinary event. Set over four days in the old part of San Sebastian, it's as much a block party as it is a film festival. Donostia Theater is elegant and old-worldly and looks more likely to present Luciano Pavarotti than Kelly On Cloud 9. The narrow cobbled lanes and ubiquitous bars and restaurants create a perfect environment for post-film discourse. There is a lax, laissez-faire tone to the neighborhood that stimulates conversation, loosens the tongue. It was exciting to watch fans, filmmakers, and media types discuss Last Hope, Searching For Michael Peterson, Waveriders, Power of Three, Picaresque, and The Present till three in the morning. I was impressed by how much the festival had grown since I was last here. And after exactly seven fried octopus balls and three glasses of Rioja, I had a vision. I imagined a kind of Cannes-meets-G8 scenario in which the world's finest surf filmmakers are tossed together in these gastronomically evolved and alcoholically lubricated streets. Gloves are put down and surf flicks are scrutinized at great length. Witness Jack McCoy and Dana Brown, standing under a flank of jamón Serrano in the corner of a smoky eatery called Bar Nestor, chewing the fat both literally and figuratively. Observe Taylor Steele and The Malloys, arguing soundtracks while sipping sangria and nibbling away at a txuleta (a massive hunk of beef that recalls Fred Flintstone's car-tipping brontosaurus rib). Marvel at Sonny Miller, Patrick Trefz, Bill Ballard, Andrew Kidman, Jason Baffa, Cyrus Sutton, and Daren Crawford, huddled around a table of empty beer bottles, vehemently debating the RedCam vs. 35mm in a language no one but a filmmaker could understand. Four days and nights of this and everyone goes back to their respective homes/studios/editing bays and produces better, more thoroughly explored work as a result. And then there are our gracious hosts. Using the volume of laughter and applause as a barometer, the Basques have a refreshingly ironical take on contemporary surfing. Self-deprecation and piss-taking is most appreciated. Each film was preceded by a Surfilm Festibal bumper that shows a super-serious, wetsuited surfer standing at water's edge. He goes through a series of stretches that suggest Mick Fanning about to paddle out for his world title-clinching heat. The camera angle shifts to show he's at Zurriola Beach, a kind of center stage for Spanish talent. The surfer dramatically fastens his leash, earnestly raises his board, and histrionically trots for the water, but about three strides into it he trips over his leash and completely eats shit on the sand. Ventures-like surf music pipes in, the Surfilm Festibal logo comes up, and the crowd, all ten or twelve times I watched it, erupts into applause. I watched a fascinating documentary about the Cuban surf scene called Havana Surf, an epic story about the history of Irish surfing called Waveriders, and a wildly imaginative short entitled Lightboard. I cringed the way I did during the shower scene in Psycho when Basque surfer/shaper Mikel Agote nearly got turned into mincemeat by a three-story wall of whitewash in Mission 89. I was deeply impressed by the twenty short film finalists, and once again, was struck by the way the Basques love to poke fun at themselves. I also ate melt-in-your-mouth T-bone steak, tubes of baby squid swimming in blue ink, fresh tomato slices doused in shaved salt and olive oil, and a range of elaborately-prepared pintxos (tapas) too numerous to mention. A Spanish friend once told me that during the Franco years, when art and poetry and self-expression were being stomped out, the Spanish embraced cuisine as a way to vent their creativity. Whether there's any truth to this, or whether this could be attributed to the funny smelling cigarette he emphatically waved in front of his face is another story. But I do know that a certain magic happens when you draw together hundreds of surfers from around the world, fill their heads with surf movies, then let them loose on the streets of San Sebastian. MORE SURF NEWS SURFLINE HOME PAGE |