Meet The Filmmaker Behind the Upcoming Documentary on Women’s Big-Wave Surfing

I’m curious how you met the main characters in the film: Paige Alms, Bianca Valenti, Andrea Moller, and Keala Kennelly.

I met Bianca just living in the neighborhood at Ocean Beach. We met around 2010. In 2014, there was an invitational event at Mavericks where 13 women were invited to come together and “compete.” It wasn't an official contest, because only one permit is issued per year for an official contest.

There’s this woman named Nico Sell. She’s a tech CEO, artist, and visionary. She gathered these women and created this event called Wickr Super Sessions. I covered the contest and that was the first time that I swam in the lineup at Mavs. To have 13 women there in the lineup gave me 13 times more courage to get out there. It was amazing. It was electric. There had never, I don't think in the history of the world, been that many women in a big wave lineup, you know, except when the Hawaiian queens were out there.

It just electrified all of us. I latched onto the four women in my film because they were definitely among the best, and they also naturally formed a friend group among each other. 

I thought it was just gonna be a documentary about these four amazing big wave surfers, but then it turned into much more. It turned into them asking for a heat at the Mavericks contest, then asking for equal pay, and then forcing the hand of the World Surf League to create equal pay in the World Surf League in all of their contests worldwide.

You've been working on this doc for 10 years now?

Nine. Almost 10. Too long, to be frank, but having the extra time has allowed more of the story to play out, which will help the film in the long run. The real barrier has just been getting a full budget. It’s almost always been self-funded which means me shooting everything, flying myself everywhere. I actually funded most of the shoots by pitching photo or print stories for all of the contests. Filmmaking is expensive. There's no way around it.

Hopefully you'll make some of that back when it comes out. It’ll be great to see a movie like this in surfing.

That’s what attracted me to the story in the first place. I recognized from that first day of meeting them that history was being made. What I love about journalism is the adage that journalism is first draft of history.

People can know about this period in time when these women were really putting their neck out and putting their careers on the line to ask for equal pay and equal representation. It changed surfing forever and changed professional sports forever. The World Surf League is the first US based sports league in history to have equal pay.

I know things have changed pretty radically. Have you ever faced any pushback as a female big wave photographer or if you mostly were just witnessing that happening to the female surfers trying to be part of these men's events?

The fact that this story hasn't gotten funding is a little bit of a pushback. I've been pitching this everywhere for 10 years, and everyone I mean, literally, everyone who hears about this is like, “this really is a documentary that could really make some money.”

I was looking at footage yesterday KK and Paige before the Jaws contest in 2018. They had just been invited to the Eddie. I think it was Paige on the phone who said, “people say you can't do it, but you just have to work really hard and prove them wrong, and it's so fun.”

It was the first time there was a clear community. We had all been kind of the onlys. All of us were the first something. Sarah Gerhardt, 1st woman to surf Mavericks, Andrea Miller, 1st surf in woman to paddle surf Jaws. It’s remarkable to think that in 2014, there were still these female firsts.

You and I first saw each other out at Waimea on a massive day. Do you find Mavericks to be sketchier than Waimea?

Swimming out to Mavs is sketchier. There's something about the water. I think cold water is just heavier. There's a lightness to the water in Hawaii.

With Mavericks, if you have to swim out, which I've done on both ends, I've swam around Mushroom Rock, and I've swam from the point, which is from the cliff. If you go along the cliff's edge, you can jump in from there and swim from the left. Both are super terrifying. You're also just worried about sharks because it's rocky and deep. It’s where sharks like to hang out and there have been plenty of sightings. That's actually why I didn't swim this last swell. Just 2 days earlier, there was a shark bite in Pacifica around the corner. There was another shark the day after that, that chased all of the surfers out of the water.

My mentor, Judith Sheridan, a woman legendary bodysurfer here, used to bodysurf Mavericks, but she doesn't bodysurf at Mavericks until after December because of the sharks and the ocean activity.

How were you introduced to her?

She actually introduced me to Ocean Beach when I first moved to San Francisco in 2001. I moved in with a surfer, but I wasn't a very good surfer. I was much better at shooting. I learned how to shoot photos in the waves before I learned how to surf.

We were at this place called Kelly's, which is on the north end of the beach, and it was giant. I was like, “there's no way I'm going out there.” So I just sat in his truck while he was out there, and he had binoculars. I was watching it, and I saw this little orange cap bobbing up and down and body surfing out there, and then I just, like, looked closer. And I'm like, “that's a woman.”

I got on my suit, and I swam out to her. She taught me everything I know. How to dive under waves, how the currents work there… all of it. She took me out to my first big days at Ocean Beach and my first swim out to Mavericks.

Having a mentor, especially at big wave spots, seems vital. For it to be a woman, too, is really incredible.

I don't think my trajectory would have happened without her. There's something that gives you extra courage to see a woman doing it, when you're a woman.

Have you seen many changes in women’s surfing in the big wave arena, or in general?

It's changed rapidly. Equal pay happened in 2018. So in the last 4 years, there has been a massive progression. Ever since the World Surf League instituted equal pay, but also since World Surf League contests are now broadcast online. They’re accessible.

When I was growing up, you were lucky if you saw a photo from a contest in a surf magazine, and that was rare because the women used to always get the shitty days. But now, with Carissa’s gold medal, and because of social media… women don't have to swim out to Judith to give them courage.

There's still a long way to go. There used to be only men who surfed in the Eddie. It’s amazing that women surfed in this last Eddie. That’s likely where my film is going to end. The Eddie is the oldest, most prestigious big wave contest in the world.

Do you think that's helped even the playing field a little bit for sponsorships and women's exposure in surfing?

Definitely. Because women can have their own channel. They don't have to be dependent on a magazine selecting one of their photos or some brand using them in their ads. They can just be their own ads. Textured Waves is a good example of that. They're a collective of black women surfers, and they didn't see themselves represented in the sport.

People are finding their photos online because people from around the world are posting these photos. Two of them are sponsored now. They’re a good example of how you can take control of the narrative.

But there's still a long way to go. Even in the WSL, there's still twice as many men competing than women. It's great that there's equal pay, but there's that means half as many women getting sponsorship and getting visibility. They're working to change that, but that has to change.

There are four women in my film, and only one of them is sponsored still.

Where do you see women's big wave surfing or women's surfing in general going in the future?

I see it growing exponentially. I'm seeing more and more women both behind the camera and in the water, and I think it's only just been start.

My daughter is 10, and she's part of this surf team in Half Moon Bay. Half of those kids are girls. When you have role models like Carissa and Moana and KK and Paige… there’s no doubt.

When is this coming out? Will you be doing a premiere?

If I get this final round of funding, I think we can have a film out by summer 2024. Once it comes out, I'm hoping it'll come out in some major streaming platform. Netflix or Amazon or something. But regardless, it'll probably have a film festival run. What we really want is to have an impact campaign attached to it.

That would include some targeted screenings and along with that, we hope to have a toolkit that could help people use local laws to create change in their communities, particularly around title 9.

A lot of the reason the women were able to create this change is because of California coastal laws, California Coastal Commission, which protects equal access to this coast. They leveraged the existing laws around that and applied that to the contest at Mavs. We are hoping to encourage other people to do the same.