Latest Update: January 14 , 2004

RIDING GIANTS TO PREMIERE AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

In 1960, Bruce Brown took his 16mm surf-travel documentary The Endless Summer to Kansas-as far away from the ocean as he could get-and played it to a non-surfing audience to see if they would like it. They liked it. A lot. That theater in Kansas was sold out for weeks, and from there Brown took The Endless Summer to New York, blew the 16 mm print up to 35 mm and found a distributor. The Endless Summer became a national and international sensation-the most successful documentary made at that time.

Stacy Peralta is about to do something similar. After two years of incredibly hard, technical, creative work, he is taking his barely-finished documentary on big-wave surfing, Riding Giants, to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, to see how it flies in front of a live, non-surfing audience. Riding Giants was one of 100 films whittled down by the Sundance people from 5000 submittals. On January 15th, Riding Giants will be the premiere movie for the entire film festival, a lavish honor that most independent film-makers can only dream about.

Riding Giants is the most ambitious big-screen project of the last 10 years, and possibly the most ambitious since The Endless Summer. Driven by the success of his skateboard documentary,Dogtown and Z-Boys, Peralta got funding from France's Studio Canal to make a documentary about big-wave surfing and its pioneers. "I'm a surfer, and I wanted to see this story told right," Peralta said. "Well I was a surfer before I started making this movie, anyway, and I hope to be again soon."

Riding Giants was written by Peralta and SURFER Editor Sam George, and edited by Paul Crowder-an Englishman who worked on Dogtown. The documentary divides big-wave surfing into three eras and focuses on one pioneer from each era.

Act One shows surfing's progress from early California to Makaha in the 50s to the first session at Waimea in 1956. Act One features Greg Noll in archival footage and contemporary interviews. Noll steals the show both with his surfing now and his perspective now. He may look like a muscle-head, but don't be fooled.

Act Two is about the emergence of Northern California's Mavericks as a contender for the world's most dangerous wave. Jeff Clark is the featured big-wave pioneer in Act Two, which focused on the danger and difficulty of riding the northern California monster. Act Two is dark and somber, as is the wave, and it ends with the ironic death of Mark Foo.

Laird Hamilton is the star of Act Three which is all about the emergence of tow surfing and the assault on the Unridden Realm. Laird's life is traced back to his youth and the relationship with his adopted father, Billy Hamilton. From that point we see how Laird and tow surfing rose and grew together, from early experiments in boats at Outside Backyards in the early 90s, to the incredible death-defying surfing at Jaws and Teauhpoo.

Riding Giants is a uniquely ambitious, well-funded, written and produced project. Peralta and all his producers have spared no expense to collect the very best footage and massage it with the latest technological tricks. The story is rock solid and all of the interview subjects distinguish themselves with their wit, literacy and eloquence.

Peralta has spent a great deal of money and time into the project and it appears he is going to be rewarded. Being chosen as the premiere movie at Sundance is a very good start, and almost guarantees that his movie will be picked up by a distributor, and given a chance on the big screen in America and internationally.