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9th Annual Women’s Surf Film Festival



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The 9th Annual Women’s Surf Film Festival came around again this week, bringing surf, film and culture enthusiasts alike to the Rockaway Beach Surf Club to celebrate the strides women have contributed to surfing.

Women showcased their craft, using mediums such as photography, music and film.

Davina Grincevicius started the festival, which ran from Sept. 5 to Sept. 10, around 10-years ago as a response to a lack of representation in surfing.

”We had started Lava Girl Surf which was doing workshops and education for women, you know, touching on all subject matters, but the festival came out of that. And I’ve been to a couple of festivals where I felt like women weren’t really being represented and this is 10-years ago. This is really me being able to just showcase films about women, as we have male and female filmmakers,” said Grincevicius.

Guests were invited to watch movies like ‘Soma’ by Eduardo Vento, ‘Raw’ by Aljaz Babnik and ‘Mothers, Purpose and the Future’ by Hannah Walsh. Beth O’Rourke presented the ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ music video starring California-based recording artist Olivia Willhite who came down to sing one of her songs, “Feelings Are Cliche”.

A photo gallery was staged inside the Rockaway Beach Surf Club of photography created by Christa Funk. Her exhibit, ‘When I Get Free’, showcased women on the beach; either surfing or swimming in the water. Much of her exhibit consists of water photography.

“Water photography is a combination of everything I’m passionate about. I grew up swimming from age 7 to 22 competitively, and started film photography in 2003 and shifted into digital. Afterwards, I just kept that going until even now and being able to combine that. I always wanted to shoot water because I swam, and I was just so fascinated by it,” said Funk on her experience with photography. “Finally being able to combine that and then put in all those years swimming and learning about photography itself, it’s a wonderful combination that I’m very grateful for and I love to share the work that I create,” she said.

Funk’s photography was followed by film screenings at the Rockaway Hotel on Sept. 9, showing Lauren Hill’s ‘Physics of Noseriding’ and J’aime Morrison’s ‘Upwell’. Followed by the actual festival on Sept. 10 at RBSC.

“I just love that it’s an opportunity to showcase women for a week. There are more men than women that surf. So you see a lot more photos of men and content for men. And it’s just awesome to have a way to showcase what the women are doing in the water and what they’re doing in more than just smaller size ways,” said Funk.

Funk fused photos of her previous visits to Hawaii, Tahiti, and Mexico to capture the essence of women in the water. “This is such a fun way to end the summer. Like Rockaway from what I’ve seen so far, it’s such a funky little surf community and you’ve got characters and different people and there is a transient beach population but you have the locals that you start to know who’s here year round, or at least every single summer is here,” added Funk.

Writer and filmmaker Laurel Senick got into surfing when was 36 and spoke of her inspiration for her movie ‘Waxshoe Wahines’ , taking 80’s cheese (the good kind!) and fusing it into a story of four girls banding together in spite of their differences to save their beach.

“Well, not to sound cliche, but it was inspired from a great little surf session with some girls and that just came to me and then I couldn’t shake it. You know, like for creatives, there’s that process of when something sticks and you can’t kind of forget about it, then you’re gonna act on it and then there’s little love that happens,” said Senick. “Their energy was so unique and it kind of grew into this idea of a Scooby Doo-esque where they solve a mystery.”

For these creatives, there is hope that the exhibit and the rest of the week provides inspiration to younger women, especially older women, to go and try something new and do what they are passionate about.

“I feel like more women are getting out there and giving it a go,” said Grincevicius. “There’s more people taking lessons, more education, more support, and I feel like that’s going to continue to grow and help people get better and just enjoy themselves,” she said.

 

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