“The one thing I really remember about the UK, is those extreme tides you have – I’m just super excited to come back over. Mostly, I just want to hear about people’s surf experiences, to connect. That’s what I’m really looking forward to.”
Endless Summer II legend, Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, will host the inaugural European Surf Film Festival, set to take place in Newquay on July 25th after day one wraps of the UK Surf & Skate Expo.
The billing for the festival is shaping up – with the last few movies to be confirmed in the next two weeks and we’ll do a full reveal then.
For Wingnut, it’s a return to the south west of the UK, having been the director of the O’Neill Surf Academy in Europe in 1997 – with one of the schools situated in Croyde, as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.
Wingnut’s also out to tick-off a little bucket-list dream. “Always wanted to surf the Severn Bore, but never really had the chance,” he said. “We surfed the Silver Dragon in China and that thing is fully crazy, organised well and also, disorganised – all the skis we had were terrible. Boats rolling over. It turned out fine though and we surfed it for seven or eight miles. It blew us away, in the horizon you see the white lines, it’s a two mile white line. That’s 10-15 feet of white water coming at you.”
Maybe with Dylan Graves alongside, who is also coming over for the ESFF, the duo could sneak off for a bore session, if that timetable allows.
As for the cultural feel of a European surf audience, Wingnut said: “I think surfers are the same all across the world. We love getting together and connecting and being a part of something. Get stoked and have fun. I think we’re so used to watching films online that when it’s on a big screen, it actually feels so much better.”
Wingnut also reflects on the impact the Endless Summer II, saying director Bruce Brown’s original vision was to bring in a more mainstream audience. “I remember arguing with the studio to advertise in bigger magazines,” Wingnut said. “To get surfing in front of those who love the outdoors and break this thing open. Show people, the ocean and what we see in it.
“You know, Bruce did an amazing job of swinging the camera back towards the beach, where a big part of surfing happens away from the waves. What makes people human in those moments and why are we all so fixated on the sea. It’s an important topic.
“Surfing stories can become, you get waves, you lose waves, you move on. But here, it was doing it with lions, kangaroos and all sorts of other bits added in.”
Wingnut, on China’s fabled Silver Dragon wave.In a way, that form of storytelling mirrors film festivals; a more communal and human feel to what’s going on away from the beaches. “I think film festivals are vital,” said Wingnut. “It’s so cool to have people in the same place. We all love that rising energy and get excited – this is what brings people together.”
It’s that sense of connection too that endeared Endless Summer II to an audience. “I think my friendship with Pat O’Connell was one of the best things to come out of that,” said Wingnut.
“To put it into context, we weren’t really paid to go surfing. We were paid for people telling us to drive. We once spent three hours driving from one spot to a sign post and back. There was no AC, sitting in the sun all day. Driving 500 metres, then back again. Boards everywhere.
“And then so many hours were spent making plans for the next day, this is before surf forecasting sites were any good. We’d walk up to some spot and just surf there. Randy Rarick was communicating with Surfline founder Sean Collins over swells. He’d drive away and check dozens of other spots and back – that was when you had to spend 45 minutes driving a kilometre. He’s return to us all salty and crusty, just to say where he’d checked hadn’t been great.”
As for how a dream film project would look for Wingnut now, it’s not changed too much and the recipe is timeless: “It’s about exploring somewhere no-one’s ever been before,” he said. “There is so much to explore around the Philippines and China. When I first went to Hainan, there were only 30 people surfing there, the real first surfers. Watching how they’ve created a career out of something that was so looked down on is inspirational. Japan love it immensely, the more remote you get the more protective you are of your waves of course.
“Travel isn’t about blowing it up, it’s about sampling the local’s waves and moving on, being a good traveller is about knowing when to share something and when to not.”
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UK Surf & Skate Expo runs July 25th and 26th in Newquay. More information, right here.
