This year’s SLO Film Fest, opening April 24, once again presents the richest Surf/Skate program that I’ve ever seen at a mainstream film festival. In fact, the SLO Film Festival dedicates its Friday night and Saturday night showcase screenings at the Fremont Theater to Surf/Skate events – that’s respect. Here are the highlights.
The always popular Surf Nite in SLO features three surfing short films with gnarly waves. Expect the Fremont Theater to be packed again with surfers enjoying drinks in the lobby and the Riff Tide surf band before the screening. The films are:
- Making Waves: The Lakey Peterson Story profiles 805-native Lakey Peterson and her experiences on the World Surf League Championship Tour.
- Creatures of Habit explores extreme cold water surfing,
- NØ WAY involves even colder water and is described as “an antithesis to The Endless Summer“. It follows a band of surfers in the Barents Sea, which is between the northernmost coasts of Norway, Finland and Russia and the Arctic Ocean
For the second year, SLO Film Fest celebrates the culture and cinema of skateboarding with its Community of Skate program:
- The feature film Skategoat profiles Leandre Sanders, whose passion for skateboarding led him to escape a crime-ridden and impoverished environment to become an international skateboarding superstar. Sanders will appear personally, along with the director, Van Alpert.
- The short film Against the Current airs the reflections of skate icon and filmmaker Stacy Peralta on his own artistic journey. A surfer and one of the pioneers of modern skateboarding, Peralta, directed Dogtown and Z-boys and Riding Giants, wrote Lords of Dogtown, and founded the Powell Peralta skateboard product company.
- A post-screening panel with pro skaters Leandre Sanders and Chico Brenes, skate film director Aaron Meza, and Skategoat director Van Alpert.
- An exhibition of skateboard designs and live-screen printing by the San Luis Obispo High School Advanced Graphic Design class.
The fest’s program also includes the enviro documentary feature The Cigarette Surfboard. To raise consciousness about the environmental impact of cigarette butts (which is really, really bad), an activist builds and displays a functioning surfboard made out of 10,000 discarded cigarette butts picked up on the beach. Backed by a community of surfers, scientists and surfer-scientists, he tours the world, seeking a ban on cigarette filters. Impressively, the Ciggy Board even survives Mavericks. The butt-gathering, surfboard building and local politics happens in Santa Cruz. This doc has racked up awards at many film festivals (even at one in Bulgaria).
Check out the program and get your tickets at SLO Film Fest. Here are the trailers for Skategoat and The Cigarette Surfboard.