This last week saw the 8th annual Wavescape Film Festival running from the Friday 9th – 19th December. Screenings started with a massive outdoor screening at Clifton fourth, then the Brass Bell Pub in Kalk Bay and then the Labia theatre.
The Festival started with the annual Wavescape Charity Art Auction on the Thursday 8 Dec. Twelve surfboards brought in a record R221 000 at the Field Office restaurant in Cape Town. Proceeds of the event go to ocean charities, NSRI and Shark Spotters, as well as AIDS awareness organisation, Isiqalo Foundation, which offers a ‘Waves for Change’ surfing programme.
Auctioneer Mark Sampson was in top comedic form, and his abrasive technique helped boost Brett Murray’s provocative board labelled “Forward Comrades” beneath a Johnny Walker logo in gold-leaf on black to the highest single amount for a surfboard: R41 000. Click here to read up more about the individual artists, their surfboards and how much money each one raised.
The 2011 edition of the festival, mixed the world’s most exciting surf films with a smattering of extreme adventure and environmental content. There are 23 films, from big wave surfing, MMA fighting, snowboarding, the next evolution in high performance surfing, bodysurfing, body boarding, wakeboarding, MTB stunts, and wing suit BASE jumping. Wavescape will also screen a record number of South African-made films: The Africa Project, Afrika, Tropical Roast, Contrast, Hooked, Leaping Louse 2011, Into the Light and Stone Rolling. The world premiere of Surfing and Sharks – The Movie produced by Wavescape’s Chris Mason, for the festival, and stars SA’s free-surf star Andrew “Roosta” Lange.
The opening screening on Clifton 4th premiered ‘Thirty Thousand’, about an epic journey by two Aussie twins who travel the entire west coast of Africa on a mammoth trek to surf unexplored waves in Morocco, Senegal, Liberia, Angola, Namibia and South Africa. This won best music soundtrack at the New York Surf Film Festival.
