THE FILMS

Under the Sun, directed by Cyrus Sutton, is a one-of-a-kind surfing flick that centers on the distinctions between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast in Australia (as well as the not-so-distinct features.) The Gold Coast is a sort of photocopy of SoCal and is the hub of the Association of Surfing Professionals with all that comes along with it. Byron Bay, only an hour south down the coast, is the soul surfer headquarters of Australia. The movie tells the story of the clash (of sorts) between these two visions of surfing. These visions are personified in the movie by Rabbit Bartholomew of ASP fame on the part of the Gold Coast, and Nat Young and his brood on behalf of Byron Bay.

Surfing 50States

The support film is SURFING 50 STATES - two young Aussies venture off to America with the simple idea of surfing the US in all 50 states, what ever it takes. This film has just been accepted into the X Dance Film Awards.

SAVE & BOOK YOUR TICKET NOW ! ONLINE

Tickets available online. Click on the tour dates on the menu bar. Select your venue and make your booking.

LIVE MUSIC

Band of Frequencies and OKA will be performing a few tunes at the Byron Bay and Noosa Showing.

We recommend that you book your ticket online as these two show might be very popular but seating limited to the venue legal capacity.

The band will be performing at the intermission and after the second half.

The SOULED OUT Surf Film Festival was born.

Successfully running the Australian Surf Movie for the last six years I have noticed they are some amazing surf films out that really needed to be seen on the big screen.
Films that aren’t crazy big waves being surfed by crazy men or surfers doing crazy maneuvers. These films are skillful works of art. Artistic moving pictures in surfing.

It is this whole new genre that has slowly bloomed into the surfing domain with high-end surf shops with lots of cool boards, books, surf, art & stuff. You look into their DVD rack you see only those cool films by Thomas Campbell, Andrew Kidman with retro films & classics.

So I have decided to create a new style of film festival, one suited to these kinds of films.
My aim is to bring to you on the big screen one night of these wonderful films of surfing.
And in some venues, where viable, live music as well.

In its first year of touring, the Souled Out Surf Film Festival will feature "UNDER THE SUN" by Cyrus Sutton which is an artful portrayal of the growth of Australian surfing between Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay. Cyrus has mastered the making of a great story and has turned this film into a gem. The second support film is SURFING 50 STATES - two young Aussies venture off to America with the simple idea of surfing the US in all 50 states, what ever it takes. This film has just been accepted into the X Dance Film Awards. Which just goes to show that it's a really good flick. Check the tralier.

So there you have it the birth of what will hopefully be a annual event the
SOULED OUT SURF FILM FESTIVAL.

Tim Bonython

• Harbord Diggers - Harbord/ Manly | Thurs 22nd Jan - 8 pm
Live music 'Sunroom'
Presented by Heritage Surf Shop SOLD OUT ! Check our tour gallery ( on menu bar)

• Cronulla | WANDA SURF CLUB |Wanda Beach | Fri 23rd - 8 pm
Presented by Triple Bull Surf Shop

• Palm Beach RSL | Sat 24th Jan - 8 pm
Live music 'Sunroom'
Presented by Raised By Wolves SOLD OUT !

• Randwick Ritz Cinema | Sun 25th Jan - 4:45 pm
Presented by Aquabumps

SA
• Adelaide Mercury Cinema | Fri 30th Jan - 8 pm
Presented by Snow and Surf Trave

VIC
• Melbourne | Esplanade Hotel | St Kilda  Thurs 5th Feb - 8 pm
Presented by Trigger Brothers -
Life Acoustic Music by Justin Carter

WA
• Margaret River Cultural Center| Thursday 19th Feb  7:30 pm
Presented by Beach Life Surf Shop ( tickets available from the surf shop)

proceeds to Surf Rider Foundation Margaret River Chapter

Under the Sun, directed by Cyrus Sutton, is a one-of-a-kind surfing flick that centers on the distinctions between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast in Australia (as well as the not-so-distinct features.) The Gold Coast is a sort of photocopy of SoCal and is the hub of the Association of Surfing Professionals with all that comes along with it. Byron Bay, only an hour south down the coast, is the soul surfer headquarters of Australia. The movie tells the story of the clash (of sorts) between these two visions of surfing. These visions are personified in the movie by Rabbit Bartholomew of ASP fame on the part of the Gold Coast, and Nat Young and his brood on behalf of Byron Bay.

Under the Sun features beautiful cinematography and great use of of graphics, particularly to show the geography of the Gold Coast and the differences between the Bryon Bay soul surfers and Coolangatta shredders. It’s funny, entertaining and an insightful look into surfing and the surfing industry down undah.

Perhaps one of the most interesting scene is the one following a shortboarder carving his way around approximately 24 other surfers in the water. The point is of that part of this piece is clearly that with the success of ASP and the advent of pro surfing has come the explosion of surfers in the water.

Under the Sun tells a great story featuring interviews with the likes of Rabbit Bartholomew, Nat Young and Beau Young as well as plenty of great locals in their natural habitat. A great flick for anyone who is interested in Australian surfing, and more to the point, the divide and collision of two surfing cultures.

Warm Is The New Cool
IN 2003, a young Californian broke onto the surf movie scene, seemingly coming from nowhere, with a release that astounded all who experienced it. The following year, the movie, entitled Riding Waves, gained official recognition, winning the award for Best Cinematography at the X-Dance Film Festival. At just 19 years of age, Cyrus Sutton had made his mark on the extreme sports film industry. That mark was big and bold and clearly stated that the future work of the Cali teen would continue to impress.
Sutton has since broken out of the often constricting surf world by documenting the lives of Yosemite National Park rock climbers struggling to balance their dangerous and seemly non-productive passions for climbing with the responsibilities of raising their families.
In 2005, Sutton co-directed, wrote and filmed The Next Wave: A Tsunami Relief Story which followed the journey of surfers Tom Carroll, Dave Rastovich and Kate Skarratt to the epicentre of devastation created by the giant wave in Northern Indonesia. Not only did Next Wave bring to light the potential power of surfing’s global community when rallied around a common interest, it also netted Sutton a coveted EMMY® award for Best Topical Documentary. Now 25, Sutton is poised for the international release of his latest work, Under The Sun. A tale of two towns, Under The Sun portrays two Australian hubs of surf history, Byron Bay and the Gold Coast as a tangible metaphor of our deeply divided modern surfing culture. Separated by less than 100 kilometres of hinterland, the Gold Coast is modern surfing's competitive powerhouse, while Byron is oozing with surfers yearning for freedom and non-conformity.
Given the swiftly earned pedigree of its creator, it can be expected that this is no backyard budget flick. Sutton, with the assistance of some of Australian surfing’s leading figures over the last four decades, has created an in-depth analysis of our boxed, wrapped and packaged surf culture from its humble roots to its precarious future. Rabbit Bartholomew and Peter Townend give comment to their significant part in the birth and rise of surfing professionalism, whilst Albe Falzon, John Witzig, and Nat Young defend their commercial rebellion through the early ‘70s. The movie bridges the historical gap by looking at the lives of Dean Morrison, Mick Fanning, Beau Young, and Dave Rastovich so following the resultant “commodification” and segregation of surfing today. But the film's final message carries something much deeper and provides clues to better our attitudes towards our planet, our fellow surfers and ultimately ourselves.

What made you, a then 22-year-old Californian, decide to tell a story, rooted generations before your time in a place on the opposite side of the world?

 Well, when I first came to Australia at 18 and they (Byron Bay and the Gold Coast) just immediately resonated with me. I guess it was more about what the towns represented than where they actually were. I didn’t actually know the history of both places until I got over there and I started interviewing people and then I kind of uncovered this amazing story of how they came to be. It’s so important to put things into perspective and, for me, I’m always asking how did things get this way or that – in this instance how did they evolve into what, in my opinion, are the alternative and consumer surf culture Mecca's that they are today. California is very similar to Australia in that they both are filled with surfers polarized by their motivations for surfing. To find two neighboring places very clearly representing the two opposing surfer camps drenched in Australia's unique natural beauty, I knew there was a movie in there somewhere.

Would you say the film has vastly differed from what you had originally set out to create?
I wouldn’t say (the end result) vastly differed, it just got a lot richer as it evolved.
The making of Under The Sun was filled with all sorts of strife and hardship, but more importantly, pleasurable surprises or happy accidents took me down paths I never would have taken.

Did being an American documenting an integral part of Australian surf history help or hinder?
I can’t really comment on that because I’m not an Australian so I don’t know how they would have treated me if I were Australian. But I believe everybody was really open to sharing with me, maybe because of who I was with, or the fact that I was a foreigner. I guess people have an innate respect for anyone who's traveled far from home on a mission that includes them. That said a lot of the characters that I wanted to interview were very cagey and rightly so, over the years they had been bombarded by starry-eyed grommets yielding video cameras hounding them to tell their same story for the hundredth time. I would be over it! And, rightly, they were too a lot of the time.
Especially coming from a different country, I tried to watch myself and show everybody respect and give everybody space. I think documentary filmmaking regardless of where you are from is the ultimate exercise in patience and discipline. Especially when you’re dealing with surfers and surfing. It’s a very ritualistic culture based on getting yourself in harmony with natural timetables. To document it you have to have the attitude of a cruiser but also have your shit dialed at all times otherwise your camera isn’t loaded or your batteries aren’t charged when nature gives you the green light.

You had your camera gear stolen twice during filming. What were the circumstances?
Yeah. People hear that my shit got ripped off twice and assume I must have had my gear hanging out everywhere, but it was two completely separate occurrences that were totally different. The first one may have not been such a fluke, because we were filming at a kind of localised break over the course of a few days. But I'd heard it was fully safe and no one had any hassles. They broke into the car on a really good day of filming. I was out in the water shooting Dave, it was probably the most epic day I got in Australia. When I ran out of film I walked in I noticed the window was smashed and all our stuff was gone. I stopped dead in my tracks. I was kind of pumped with adrenalin because the waves were so good. And then that happened it was like someone had let the air out of my tires.
The next one happened about a month after I got all of my stuff replaced, I got insurance the day before I left for Oz or I wouldn't be talking with you right now. Thank God I bought insurance! So I’d replaced my equipment, which was difficult because there was a lot of rare, expensive, antique camera equipment. We were on a totally different stretch of the beach with my rad blue '88 Buick Skyline. We went surfing and we had all the stuff covered up completely. They broke into the car expecting to salvage a wallet or something little and scored big time. After that I was super-paranoid. I bought this ginormous, crazy, steel box off this eccentric photographer and had it welded into the back of my car and locked all of my gear in that the whole rest of the trip. Even then I had a hard time letting my car out of my site.

Were there any positive outcomes from that situation?
The silver lining to that dark cloud is that those thefts really changed who I am today. It got to the point after that second theft that I was going to either have a nervous breakdown, call it quits, and head back to America a defeated, angry human or just completely let go.
It takes a lot of ambition to make a surf film, especially these days with the level of production going on. It’s not laid back. It’s really high stress. Those thefts really forced me to detach myself from all those pressures and just take the process whether it was filming, editing or animating, at my own pace.
Also, every time my stuff was stolen my film was in a separate place so I never lost that epic footage. Those moments were irreplaceable so I was super fortunate in that regard as well.

Do you think the geographical story you have portrayed, of the very commercially driven Gold Coast against the super-laid back Byron Bay globally reflects surfers’ consciousness?

Sure. In rural settings you have a heightened connection with the natural environment you're surrounded by and surfing furthers that connection. It is natural for the characters forged by this to shun the mainstream urban surf scene. In an urban setting you are immersed in a community based on selling things so surfing will naturally be incorporated into that machine. Byron and the Goldy are two stark examples of each environment, but even within those environments many of the surfers relate to both mentalities on some level. We have all felt the desire to compete out in our lineups and be top dog. On the other hand we can all attest the inexplicable joy we get from tuning into the swells riding across the oceans.

The movie is left a little open-ended, with the message clearly stated but a distinct conclusion of ‘what next?’ What do you think will be the next step in surfing’s future?
When I’m asked what the movie is about I say it’s about the commodification of sub-cultures as told through two coastal towns. That’s the heart of what’s going on in this film. Basically I just used the theme of the polarized towns to draw the viewer in based on his or her interpretation of surfing.
While I was in Oz uncovering the history of the two places and getting the imagery to back it up I noticed a tremendous change in both landscapes. It seemed like every month a new building was going up or a new lane of highway was being added. Surfing and the surfing lifestyle is becoming more and more popular and nearly every surfable coastline in the world is becoming more and more crowded. The beach lifestyle is highly marketable and because of that marketing a lot more people are moving to the coast. We are living in a time when subcultures like surfing swallowed up by marketing forces using the image of those pursuits to sell their products. Whether it’s a freesurfer who lives in a more rural area, getting paid to represent someone who is more natural and soulful. Or the contest surfer who is paid to be a sportsman- these days it’s all the same. They (the companies) are searching for the virgin cool, the untouchable stoke that doesn’t come from buying things. Basically, the film for me is kind of dealing with that personally.
Despite the rapid deterioration of our surf zones through overcrowding. Many young surfers these days are aren't even questioning mainstream surfing, instead they're fitting right into a machine whose values are merely the shadow of what surfing was originally about. On the other hand you have this crew who is constantly on the run, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of the mainstream. I was one of them. I grew up in clothes I found at thrift stores, rode funky longboards, eggs and fishes to feel different and untouched by mainstream culture. I talked shit on big surf companies and the people who wholeheartedly subscribed to their agendas. At some point a few years ago I realized that was just totally pointless too. I mean I grew up searching for the new cool like it was a full time job or something. Basically I was just doing free market research for the companies. I'm over it. Warm is the new cool. We’re all surfers and so many of us have wasted so much time toying with the manufactured scene of surfing whether its embracing it or railing against it.
As surfing and society at large reaches critical mass we need to evolve. We all just need to respect ourselves, our companies, and our environment and I think that when that happens, surfing will become a very powerful force. Surfing is such a great tool for reconnecting with our own selfishness, with our own primal desire for health and happiness. Take the environment. I’m a selfish surfer and I want to have the ocean be clean and I want to protect it, just because that’s where I get my stoke, not because I think I’m going to be the next Mother Teresa. And that’s what Rasta’s section is about. If surfers paddled out truly being selfish, they would smile at everybody, then they’d let go and laugh and talk with the crowd and they’d get more waves. And probably when they took off they wouldn’t tense up and they’d surf better - and that’s what surfing should be: paddling out and just letting it happen to you. It’s a combination of preparedness and putting yourself in the right place and just following the feeling of stoke.
Everybody has the right to be joyously selfish. It’s really about cultivating our own self-empowerment and nothing feels better than doing good. Then nothing is negative or positive, it just is. The surf industry, the hippy surfer, the jock surfer, the scientist surfer, mom surfer, the grom - instead of being good or bad, all become equal members in our growing tribe. That is the message of my film.