THE 14th iteration of the Wavescape Surf Film Festival takes place at the Durban International Film Festival, headlined by the African premiere of the smash-hit feature documentary Heavy Water, by California-based South African Michael Oblowitz on Sunday, 22 July.
Heavy Water: The Life and Times of Nathan Fletcher will open Wavescape at the Bay of Plenty outdoor screening. The film is one of 22 films Wavescape brings to Durban this year, including features and shorts from Sierra Leone, Namibia, South Africa, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada, among others.
Wavescape Director Steve Pike, aka Spike, said that the lineup for DIFF was one of the most exciting in years. “We’re honoured to have several other African premieres, such as the incredible story of Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark, and the gritty documentary Secrets of Desert Point, a piece of pioneering surf history.”
ALSO READ: DIFF dishes up feast of cinema’s best
From Monday 23 to Friday 27, July, Wavescape moves to Arena 5, Village Walk, uShaka Marine World for five 6pm screenings, which are free. The screenings at uShaka open with a lineup of three short films and two features, the soulful Perilous Sea and Church of the Open Sky, a master piece of surf filmmaking by Australian director Nathan Oldfield.
Wavescape closes with Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable, the untold story of Hamilton’s journey from childhood to motherhood and how she lost an arm to a tiger shark as a child. However, her relentless determination turns her into one of surfing’s great pro surfers and big wave riders, despite her disability. Bethany rewrites the phrase “Surfs Like a Girl.”
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