Leading shapers from across the UK have been invited to showcase their alternative surf craft at the event and  alongside will be an installation from some of UK surfing’s most exciting photographers and artists.

Part surf comp, part social gathering, the festivities will continue into the evening with music and a special film screening in association with London Surf / Film Festival.

Hosted at the natural amphitheatre of Lusty Glaze, Cornwall, it is an event for all comers. Lusty Glaze is renowned as both a popular beach and a venue, boasting a bar, restaurant and huge decked veranda as well as further rooms which will be utilised for the event.

The Slyder Cup team is headed by Chris Nelson, Event Director London Surf / Film Festival; Nick Holden, Contest Director World Belly Boarding Championships; Demi Taylor Creative Director London Surf / Film Festival with artwork from Rich Braham of Whale Submarine .

The Slyder Cup is a we are the fold production.

Neil Erskine – Constantine; Cornwall // CHRIS NELSON

The grassy headland overlooking Constantine beach is rich with the smell of rain on the dusty path. A lone figure sits out in the clear blue, hugging the line of speckled foam, fingerprints left by passing peelers as they taper down the point. He strokes his home crafted single fin into a rising peak and ambles to his feet, crouching low through a flat spot, then rising to trim through a funnel of steep face, before gliding into the end section and pulling out into the rip. Neil Erskine has a casual, relaxed style and ability to make the small waves look deceptively appealing; the kind of rhythmic wave-catching that stirs onlookers into a hurried change for even the most uninviting conditions.

Walking back to the tiny car park Neil pauses to admire a 4wd Mercedes ice cream van, mentally converting it into the perfect camper, with off-road capability for exploring hidden breaks in Galicia and beyond. “For me you need a vehicle that you can live in, so I’m not just burning fuel in a little bubble that gets me from A to B,” he says. “At least once I get to B, if I want to stay I can park up and live.” This is no hyperbolic daydream but rather the code by which Neil lives, pared back, treading lightly, working with his surroundings. For him possessions are peripheral, not something that should limit or define the parameters of life.

Neil’s dad was a shipwright with access to fibreglass. “He started South Coast Surfboards, so Friday ‘til Sunday night was spent at the beach. I became one of those water people,” he says smiling. “But to me a board’s just a board. It’s more about being in the ocean. That’s the bottom line; everyday, get to the beach, make the most of what’s on offer.” It was this appetite that saw his surfing evolve into bodyboarding and back again. “There’s a connection in the way I look to surf on a wave,” he explains. “It’s kind of relative to the way a bodyboard would work, you don’t generate so much speed, you use the wave’s energy. When I went back to stand-up surfing, I was drawn to the unconventional for there’s an inherent difference between something you can manipulate and generates drive, as opposed to something that’s naturally responsive to what’s happening with the surf – like single fins, longboards and twin-fins.”

Watching the lines someone makes in the water can tell you a lot about the path they follow in life. Neil’s creative drive extends its arc onto dry land. “I make something everyday,” says Neil. “Draw something, build something. I think it’s important. I sell it if anyone is interested, but it’s never contrived that way. I don’t push it, I don’t even have any Internet space.” But space is something that Neil revels in – the fringe, that place where the land meets the sea. The cliff top walks, the dune backed beach and white-flecked margins, the zone that cannot be tamed, where nature still rules. The zone of perpetual fluid motion.

Chris Noble / click to read

Matt Smith / click to read

Mickey Smith / click to read

Simon Skelton / click to read

COLD COMFORTS & ICE CREAM HEADACHES // CHRIS NELSON

There is something special about summer in Cornwall. Small lines of swell roll through to sandy coves, greeted by the eager battalions of surfers who pepper the line up. The huge hulks of basking sharks trawl through the waters, while dolphins leap outback, occasionally venturing in to share a wave with a cross-stepping longboarder. But the seasons drift on and for the majority of wave riders the passing of the summer months is not mourned. The turning of the calendar is greeted with excited conversation, for winter is a magical time for surfers on these shores. The peak swell season kicks with its promise of consistent waves, where approaching lines generated by far off Atlantic storms, are fanned by offshore winds, that marshal the oceans energies into moments that live long in the memory.

As the crowds drain away like the ebbing tide, the beaches are left to the dog walkers and beach-combers, wrapped up tight against the advancing chill. Car-parks are revealed, puddle strewn and wind whipped but they do not remain empty for long. As surfers we are summoned by the coming of the swell, we position our vehicles instinctively, noses into the breeze, boot hatches offering a degree of shelter, anticipating the change from warm clothes to cold wetsuit. It is an art to be perfected at record speed, for the shock of damp neoprene and the biting wind on exposed skin is the only hurdle between you and the waiting waves. Traditionally winters meant leaking wetsuits, ice cream headaches, a season where only the hardy endured the shivering line-up and borderline hyperthermia. Today modern wetsuits have revolutionised our lives. We benefit from the space age advances of flush proof ‘fluid seems’, integrated hoods and a 5 millimetres barrier of smooth-skin foam between us and the frigid Atlantic. Don’t say it too loud, but it is almost comfortable. Almost…cont

Hit the link to continue reading online. This article first appeared in Issue 2, The Good Cornwall Guide.

HOKKAIDO – THE RIGHTS OF PASSAGE // CHRIS NELSON

It was after midnight when I walked out through the sliding doors of a deserted Chitose airport. The fifty people from my flight had evaporated into the night. I was alone. Here was the moment when doubt began to creep into the back of my mind. I had no number to call, no phone that worked here and I could barely string a few words of Japanese together. It had taken six months just to get this far, and I was here on trust. It had all started with an email to a contact in Tokyo. Four lines of polite prose setting out my case. The reply came swiftly; he didn’t have an in on Hokkaido but he would ask around. Two weeks later hope arrived in my inbox, my man in Tokyo knew someone who knew someone. No names where exchanged, but everyone wanted to know more, a detailed plan of exactly what I wanted and why I was coming. After another couple of rounds of the interview process I was given the name of Taro Tamai, my local contact and I hoped my man on the ground.

Hokkaido is Japan’s most northerly prefecture, an island the size of Ireland. In the winter the northern fringes are ice-locked and the land blanked under several feet of snow. It a place where winter sports brought the Olympics, where water sports brought solitude. Coming from the grey cold of Britain’s North Sea, I’d always been drawn to those communities who existed on the edge, on surfing’s fringes. When I looked at Hokkaido on the world map, a land that sits at a latitude to the north of Vladivostok, the hook was set. I knew that here was a place I needed to go. However, there was no easy route in, no friendly sponsored pro to act as a conduit for the outside world. Without a well worn path to follow it’s a case of tread carefully. Through email channels I’d laid out my mission. I was chasing tales, not swells. My visit would not be the vanguard of an influx of surf tourists. But I knew I was walking a fine line. So here I was, Chitose Airport, jetlagged, waiting, hoping that nothing had been lost in translation. After twenty minutes I dragged my boardbag outside into the frigid night air and stood, transfixed by my icy breath. In the distance I could see a figure approaching. They had that familiar casual gait. This must be my man. He closed slowly but as I turned to greet him, he continued by with a nod and disappeared into the terminal, taking my fading hopes with him. Seconds later a van swept up to the curb. “Chris? Hey, jump in,” beamed Yuki, who would be my driver on this quest to seek out the islands surfing pioneers.

The next day I met Taro Tamai. Seated at his large, wooden kitchen table he poured hot water into the white porcelain teapot. Huge picture windows framed the volcanoes and peaks around us. As a Yorkshireman, I smiled at the shared symbolism of this simple act. Tea, the universal icebreaker. Taro is known as one of Japans great snowboarders, a pioneering freerider who gracefully surfs the fields of champagne powder around his home. But what is less well known is that he is also a true soul surfer, escaping the limelight in search of the isolated frigid reefs and points that hide elusive, close by.  For Taro, being a cold water surfer is a holistic experience, it’s not about wearing a thicker wetsuit and enduring – it’s about where your mind takes you. The gradation in colour, the black and the white. It was this connection as cold water spirits, this shared understanding that had gained me an audience, and after three days of sharing stories and trading tales, he opened the door on his world.

Sometimes it feels as though there is a demand for everything to be immediate. Travellers can pre-load, arriving drunk on facts. Go online before you go, check the swells, watch the videos, read the reviews. Check everything first. No need to communicate when you get there. There’s a danger that we, as surfers, will become insular and removed from the very places and the very people we hope to experience. But take all this out of the equation, remove the digital drip and you have to engage, with the place, with the community. On Hokkaido, the language and the culture act as great filters. My journey so far had been a lesson in going slow, patience. It had reminded me of my days as a grommet in the northeast in the late eighties. You served your time and paid your dues on the beaches, then you were invited to the secret reefs when you had built up time and trust. It was a right of passage, not an immediate right. I had served my apprenticeship, and on my fourth day on the island Taro offered to introduce me to Noboru, the very first wavrider on Hokkaido, ground zero for Naminori on the northern isle.

Without Taro we would not have been here. He’d had to reach out. He was personally vouching for me. We were a long way for the cosy surrounding of Taro’s kitchen table. Under the stark neon lights of a downtown Sapporo office I was introduced to Noboru and Kasagi. Nodding we’d exchanged business cards, taking time to study each in turn, placing them on the table next to us. We had sipped the strong, black espresso that is lifeblood of Japan. Despite the formal surroundings there was a relaxed air – surfing has a way of bringing down barriers, be they lingual or cultural. Excited stories cascaded forth, Noboru part narrating, part translating. In 1976 he’d returned from the US, the stoke of surfing pumping through his veins. When he arrived home, there were no other surfers, no known surf breaks. No counter-cultural revolution. He had no pointers, no car. He was adrift. Kasagi was encouraged into the line-up. However they soon found themselves the centre of unwanted attention – the police, issuing threats, tickets and verbal warnings. In a land where strict rules and social pressures bred conformity, they didn’t back down. Instead they recruited. Strength in numbers and the motorcycle gangs offered access to a large pool of eager converts. It was the cultural equivalent of Dora recruiting Hells Angels to the Malibu line-up. Kasagi offered images across the table, Kodak prints in rich hues, reaching back through the decades to young surfers posing on the sand, leaning on the bonnets of surfboard laden Datsuns. Soon Taro turned to explain we had been invited for food at Kasagi’s house. The whispered tone conveyed that this was an unexpected privilege.

The surfers of Hokkaido may have lifted the veil on their incredible history and heritage, yet they still shield their coastline from the fate suffered by many. In Hokkaido no one ever warned me off, as they had in Nova Scotia. Or advised me not to write about their waves, as they had in Norway. There was no need. There was an implicit accord that we shared as cold water souls. Here on a land where surfing still operates an honour system, access was a privilege. This was the right kind of localism in action. I knew from the off that if they’d wanted to shut me out, they could have done so at any time, and I would have been adrift. They could have merely left me at the airport. Left me out in the cold.

This article first appeared in ‘Amazing Surf Stories’ by Alex Wade, published by Wiley 2012.

AIM
To devise and roll out a tightly targeted, core press PR campaign to generate coverage and buzz surrounding the Finisterre London pop up shop launch and the 10th year aniversary of the brand

STRATEGY
Given the time line, the campaign focussed on short lead time press coverage, necessitating a focus on placing news stories, Finisterre brand images and inerviews within the digital media. Back up PR campaign with social media support across Facebook and Twitter.

RESULTS
The focussed campaign, rolled out in a tight time scale resulted in solid editorial coverage throughout core media channels including: BoardSport Source, Chic Geek, Cooler Magazine, Desillusion Magazine, Huck, London Surf / Film Festival, Sabotage Times, Sports Sister, Sportswear Interational, Surfers Village, The Surfer’s Path, Thrill City, Wavelength, London Pop Ups. For an overview click the link below.

Check out this great little round up of LS/FF 2012 put together by talented creative and filmmaker Allyn Harper whose debut ‘Through the Whisky Barrel’ we were stoked to premiere at LS/FF 2011.

BEING THE LOCAL: HOW CHRIS NOBLE CAME TO TERMS WITH THE CROWDS // CHRIS NELSON

It’s a fact: surfing has undergone a boom in popularity over the last ten years, it’s reached a critical mass. Previously uncrowded breaks are bursting at the seams. Thurso is a prime example of a once empty wave now dealing with growing pains. Local charger Chris Noble is all too aware of the pressures these numbers bring and the thorny issues raised by crowding and localism. But how do you come to terms with an influx of new faces and how do you prevent the wave you love descending into anarchy?

This scene has changed little over the decades, a tiny huddle of wind scoured cottages leading to a mud spattered farmyard. An otherwise desolate, unremarkable place, it has the power to stir the emotions and touch the soul for this puddle-strewn yard is the gateway to the flat tapering rock of Thurso East. Fabled cold water surf break, hallowed right hand reef, the place at the end of the road, mainland Britain’s most northerly fringe. It’s easy to spot Chris Noble in the line-up. His style honed, year on year, by this frigid environment; big carves on the open face, then tucked into a coiled spring of compacted energy, threading through the hollows, where icy melt-water from the river leeches into the line-up – peat stained and whiskey hued…Cont.

This article first appeared in the October 2012 Issue of Wavelength Magazine

However, film festivals offer something that is becoming increasingly rare in this digital age. Yes, films premiered onto the Internet hit a huge audience, but can you ever better the feeling that Inge Wegge experienced as the crowd stood at the end of his film to clap and cheer? Or the way and audience erupts spontaneously into laughter – crying out as one as they did during the premiere of Peter Hamblin’s ‘Wright Side of Wrong’?  Or the cheers that went up when ‘The Endless Winter’ was announced as Best British Film or the way Rob Lockyear lifted festival founder Demi Taylor off the ground when ‘The Shaper’ won Shortie of the Year.

As creatives we often beaver away, out of the limelight. Books or films are released, articles are published, often with very little feedback. Festivals are an amazing conduit, a great way for filmmakers to hear just how much a crowd appreciates their work. You can’t beat the buzz generated by an audience enjoying a post screening beer and discussing their favourite scenes.

And the awards are a massive pat on the back from the jury and the audience. It’s a great way for them to say ‘We loved your film!’ and ‘That cinematography was awesome!” And I guess that’s why it’s my favourite part of the event. So after 13 packed features and over 30 films screened, here are the movies the screening panel voted for. Gongs for some, kudos for all.

Best Film, presented by Oakley: HERE + NOW, dir: Nathan Myers, USA

Best Documentary: NORTH OF THE SUN, dir: Inge Wegge & Jørn Nyseth Ranum, NOR

Best Cinematography, presented by XSories: DEAR SUBURBIA, dir. Kai Neville, AUS

The Spirit of the Festival Award: THE AFRICA PROJECT, dir: Jason Hearn, SA

Best British Film, presented by Finisterre: THE ENDLESS WINTER, dir: Matt Crocker and James Dean, UK

Best International Short, presented by magicseaweed: SURF MAGAZINES DON’T TALK ABOUT LAPSED CATHOLICS, Dir: Todd Stewart, USA

Shortie of the Year, presented by National Trust: THE SHAPER, dir: Rob Lockyear, Richard Pearn, Jeremy Joyce, UK

The Viewers Choice Award, presented by Oakley, is voted for by the audience over the four days of the festival. This year the overwhelming winner is: NORTH OF THE SUN, dir: Inge Wegge & Jørn Nyseth Ranum, NOR

Five times British Champion Robyn Davies (l) presents the Crayfish team of Rob Lockyear (3rd l to r), Jeremy Joyce and Richard Pearn with Shortie of the Year for ‘The Shaper’.

Thanks to all the filmmakers who entered their films for this year’s event. We were stoked to screen so many amazing films and host so many great filmmaker Q&A’s. Our thanks also go out to the screening panel for being involved, taking the time to view and feedback on this year’s films. It’s a joy to work with such enthusiastic supporters of independent filmmaking.

There are also Honourable Mentions from the jury for the following films:

Film: Sally, dir: Simon Treweek and Nicholas Damon, Aus

Documentary: The Boardroom, dir: Markus Davids, USA

Cinematography: Here + Now, dir: Nathan Myers, USA

British Film: Sink Swim, dir: John Eldridge and Mathilda Fristrom, UK

International Short: Wright Side of Wrong, dir: Peter Hamblin, SA

The London Surf / Film Festival is proud to welcome environmental group Surfers Against Sewage on board as friends of the festival for 2012. “Surfers Against Sewage is delighted to partner with the London Surf / Film Festival,” says Hugo Tagholm, SAS Executive Director. “SAS is committed to protecting waves and the coastal environment, the very essence and foundation of the fantastic films screened. With thousands of passionate surfers in London, it’s also a great way for us to reach out with our environmental message, meet new supporters and raise awareness of unique, fragile and threatened surf spots. During the event, we’ll be asking festival devotees to sign the new SAS Protect Our Waves petition calling on the government to better recognize and protect UK surfing heritage.”

Gabe Davies, Alan Stokes, Ben Howard, Celine Gerhart have all signed up…have you?

11-14 October 2012, hosted at London’s iconic Riverside Studios, the London Surf / Film Festival is a celebration of the cream of contemporary surf culture from waveriding’s most exciting creatives. Bringing to the capital four nights of surfing’s most anticipated releases, underground hits, independent features and UK premieres as well as the pick of short film productions from Britain and Ireland it is a premiere platform for international surf filmmaking. ‘I’m incredibly excited about the line up this year,” says Event Director Chris Nelson. “We’re showcasing 12 international features including 5 huge European Premieres and 4 UK Premieres. The quality of cinematography is stunning, the sound tracks epic while the surfing pushes things to a whole new level.  I can’t wait to see them played out as they were meant – on the big screen to an amped crowd.” Fusing together surf, film, art, music photography and commentary, this is the must attend event for purveyors of the glide. Tickets are on sale now through the Riverside Studios and full programme details can be found on our website www.londonsurffilmfestival.com

“As surfer’s we’ve all benefitted from the campaigning work and pressure SAS has exerted at a local, national and European level,” says Chris Nelson. “When I started surfing in the 1980’s many spots were riddled by pollution. SAS went to the heart of Brussels and helped galvanise a new clean water agenda that changed the way everyone thought about bathing waters. SAS are still working hard to protect and educate and need our support now as much as ever so we are stoked to have them on board at this year’s festival and offer our support.”