O'Neill Aotearoa Surf Film Festival 2019

Overview

Now in its seventh year, the O'Neill Aotearoa Surf Film Festival celebrates the best of surf culture and our connection with the environment through a curated selection of international surf features, documentaries and short films.

This year the ASFF kicks off in Gisborne on Saturday, 23 February before dropping in to Auckland on March 23 and April 12, comprising a free outdoor screening in Takapuna at Smales Farm and the grand finale Mount Eden's Crystal Palace.

After 30 film submissions and four weeks of deliberation the screening panel has chosen the official selection — a three-headed lineup that organisers are calling the best yet.

Rail Road comes from Portuguese director and producer Gustavo Imigrante. The feature journeys through Europe by train to relive the old surf trip ethos when surfers took to kombis, trains and camper vans to trawl this coast to find surfing nirvana. Expect big, heaving barrels.

Director Andrew Buckley's Nevertown is part surf film, part conservation film. While crossing the rugged Southern Ocean of Australia, the film narrates a rallying call for the natural world. In between surfing the big one, Rasta, Dan Ross, Belinda Baggs and Heath Joske talk to coastal activists fighting deepwater oil drilling and industrial fish farms.

Also out of Australia comes Emocean from director/producer Tony Harrington. This three-year project evolved from surf flick into a cinematic exploration of the complex relationships with the ocean through the eyes of conservationists, pipe legends, big wave pioneers, surf filmmakers, and pipe photographers.

A selection of films from the ASFF short film competition will precede each session. Attendees can expect a curated selection of shorts spanning Indonesia, Spain, New Zealand and Australia. A licensed bar will be available in the cinema for the main festival.