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The top 8 flicks from the Wavescape Film Festival you have to watch!

Cape Town - It’s finally time for the Wavescape Film Festival taking place at the Labia theatre in Cape Town.

The films will screen from 8 to 11 December between 18:00 and 20:00. Tickets are R55 and available from webtickets.

Founder of the Wavescape Festival, Steve Pike gave us his top 8 flick selection from the amazing line-up.

SPIKE’S TOP 8:

FEATURE FILMS

1) THE FOURTH PHASE - SA Premiere
Producer: Red Bull Media House
North Pacific, 2016, 90min

From the creators of The Art of Flight, this snowboarding epic, with some surfing, stars iconic athlete Travis Rice as he plots a 16,000 mile route around the north Pacific following the hydrological storm cycle, including brain-bursting snowbound vistas and snowboard action in the backcountry of Wyoming. You will be transfixed to your seat, craft beer fused to your sweaty mit, while the mind-blowing imagery, ridiculous 4K footage, arty blend of surf and snowboarding, and high-octane cinematography pumps your soul full of stoke.


2) LET’S BE FRANK – Q&A
Director: Peter Hamblin
USA, Hawaii, South Africa, 2016, 50min

Who is this Frank Solomon? Big wave surfer from Cape Town, or someone we don’t know at all? No one knows the real Frank Solomon. Nooit bru, you might not even know the fake Frank. The weirdness of Peter Hamblin’s filmmaking morphs with this mysterious hook, and movie magic is made. It’s a smash hit everywhere it’s screened, and looks a shoo-in for the Surfer Poll of the year. How did it come about? Well, Frank met Peter in a bar. The rest is his story. See what we did there?


3) DIRTY OLD WEDGE - SA Premiere
Director: Tim Burnham
California, 2016, 62min

Waves are Wedges when they boast the same convulsive consequence of a warped weirdness in the barrel when they break. Usually man-made, when swell bounces off piers, or groynes, or walls, this is the story of THE Wedge of Newport Beach. The most hardcore Wedge in the world is woven into the fabric of Californian surf folklore tighter than the colourful beanie atop a Peruvian pensioner’s head. Sit back, suck on some anti-inflammatories to stave off a brain explosion as you are swept along and over the falls in this partly awe-inspiring doccie laced with scenes from a horror movie.

4) ANGEL AZUL
Director: Marcy Cravat
USA, UK, Mexico, Indonesia, Grenada, 2014, 74min

Angel Azul is no craft brew for a new Cape Town IPA bru. It means Blue Angel, the title of this trippy feature about artist Jason deCaires Taylor as he comes up with a haunting - and somewhat ironic - plan to save our coral reefs. He makes beautiful underwater statues in shockingly human-like form. Over time, like Johnny Depp and his mottled collection of pirate reprobates, this collective symbol of human destruction begins to become part of the sea, creating new reef. And thus this link between us and the ocean turns the tide of our own fallibility. Deep!


5) SOUTH TO SIAN - SA Premiere
Director: Dustin Humphrey
Deux ex Machina, 2016, 53min

Who would have thought that motorbikes and mini-mals make for such compelling viewing. Two mates pack their hipster quiver of boards, two bikes and a $50 tent into – or on – a 70s Land Rover. Spraying black volcanic sand from their boneys or crystalline ocean drops from their boards, they venture from southern Bali to Sumatra’s Lagundri Bay to find out if the pioneering spirit remains alive. You decide.

MEDIUM FILMS

6) THE ACCORD - SA Premiere
Director: RC Cone
Iceland, 2016, 18min

Growing up as a surfer in Iceland depends on a fractious and often volatile relationship between the relentless and angry North Wind (played by a very funny actor) and the innocent young surfer with an unpronounceable name (Heiðar Logi Elíasson). See? Told you. Our surfer makes a deal to pacify our grumpy wind bag. That’s what an Accord is. And it’s very funny. Here, there are no surf shops, guidebooks or webcams. Out here, we is snowed immaculate.


7) FREEDOM RIDERS
Producer: ABC Promotional Videos
South Africa, 2016, 27min

How do you free troubled kids from the violence and poverty of South Africa’s broken townships? For starters, you teach them to surf. Award-winning Aussie TV journalist Sally Sara comes to Cape Town to report on the years of hard work by our friends at Waves For Change that are beginning to yield meaningful dividends.

SHORT FILMS

8) LUNAR
Director: Luca Merli
Canary Islands, 2016, 8min

Leah Dawson cruises the Canary Islands from her Hawaiian home with her unpretentious attitude, graceful surf style, and a soulful off-key lilt in the ballads she so wistfully sings. You will fall in love with an ethereal creature grounded by earth, and energised by water and the lunar pull of the moon.

Click here for the full film festival line-up.

Channel24 is a proud media partner of the 2016 Wavescape Festival.

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