Waveriders
Waveriders is the previously untold story of the unlikely Irish roots of the worldwide surfing phenomenon and today’s pioneers of Irish big wave surfing. The story unfolds through the inspirational and ultimately tragic history of Irish/Hawaiian legendary waterman, George Freeth. Freeth, son of an Irishman, was responsible for the rebirth of this sport of Hawaiian kings in the early twentieth century. With its distinguished cast of world-renowned Irish, British and Irish/American surfers WAVERIDERS journeys full-circle from Hawaii to California and back to Irish shores following Freeth’s wave of influence. This journey reaches a spectacular climax when the surfers conquer the biggest swell ever to have been ridden in Ireland catching monster waves of over fifty feet.
The film was financed by the European Union through the Interreg IIIA Programme managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the ICBAN Partnership, Northern Ireland Screen, The Irish Film Board / Bord Scannán na hÉireann, BBC Northern Ireland and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.
Title: Waveriders
Year: 2008
Duration: 80 mins
Format: 35mm
Production: Inis Films & Besom Productions co-production
Director: Joel Conroy
Producer: Margo Harkin
Fianciers: EU InterregIIIA / ICBAN, Northern Ireland Screen, The Broadcast Commission of Ireland, BBC Northern Ireland and Bord Scannán na hÉireann / Irish Film Board
Winner of the Audience Award for Best Film at the Dublin International Film Festival 2008
Shortlist for the Grierson Awards 2008
REVIEWS:
IRISH TIMES
CULTURE NORTHERN IRELAND
www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?art_id=200
PAUL LYNCH, Film Critic:
“Waveriders is an assured documentary that puts Ireland at the centre of the surfing story. But it is at its best among the waves - raw and exhilarating, director Joel Conroy harnesses something intangible: the spiritual purity that lures extreme surfers to the ocean. The final breathtaking images, captured in the maw of an angry ocean, still linger large in my mind.”
VARIETY
www.variety.com/article/VR1117981516.html
THEELEVATOR.IE
www.theelevator.ie/ellie.php?eid=320
Blogger
http://xetera.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-cold-paradise.html
New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/world/europe/27surfers.html
PHOTOS:
From Left to right: Gabe Davies, Richard Fitzgerald, Joel Conroy