Watch the classic surf movie get an intriguing… | Little White Lies

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Watch the clas­sic surf movie get an intrigu­ing new twist

09 Mar 2016

This new video from our sis­ter pub­li­ca­tion Huck mag­a­zine shows that you don’t need waves to surf.

When we think of movies about surf­ing, our minds hark back to such macho movies as 1978’s Big Wednes­day and 1966’s The End­less Sum­mer in which bronzed Adonis­es suit up in pri­ma­ry-coloured Speedos and take on giant break­ers with their trusty hand-tooled boards.

Even con­sid­er­ing more mod­ern extreme sport-based titles like Point Break, these films play up a myth­ic qual­i­ty to the men’s endeav­our. But they sel­dom shift away from the cliché that it’s always men and it’s always the coast of Cal­i­for­nia where the best waves can be found. And, there’s usu­al­ly some kind of housewife’s favourite / close-har­mo­ny com­bo pro­vid­ing the toe-tap­ping soundtrack.

But what if surf­ing wasn’t just about wait­ing patient­ly for the big waves, or didn’t require a Zen-like con­cen­tra­tion that, sup­pos­ed­ly, only a man can muster? Surf­ing in the Rock­ies is a new video by Huck mag­a­zine which demon­strates that every­thing we think we know about the lim­its of surf­ing is wrong. Okay, if not wrong per se, then it’s cer­tain­ly up for debate.

The film tells the sto­ry of Brit­tany Park­er, who has realised her surf­ing ambi­tions by locat­ing a spot some 1,200 miles from their near­est beach (Glen­wood Springs, Col­orado, to be exact) and just got on with the busi­ness at hand. She is a pio­neer of a new brand of riv­er surf­ing which takes the tra­di­tion­al sport and places it with­in a new and excit­ing con­text. Instead of using waves to gain momen­tum and speed, this type of surf­ing involves rid­ing between the rapids and rivulets on fast-flow­ing rivers.

Though it remains some­thing of a niche activ­i­ty, Park­er and her cohorts remain com­mit­ted to enjoy­ing what the land­scape around them has to offer. Indeed, the film Can I Surf That?, direct­ed, shot and edit­ed by anoth­er Col­orado pow­er­house, Heather Jack­son, fol­lows Brit­tany, her best pal Claire Chap­pell and anoth­er local surfer Nadia Almu­ti, for two years as they explored the world’s best non-ocean waves.

Check out Huck’s three-minute video – direct­ed by surfer Mikey DeTem­ple and fea­tur­ing Nation­al Geo­graph­ic explor­er Cory Richards to pro­mote Finlandia’s work with 1% For The Planet.

Read more at huck​magazine​.com

Two illustrated book covers depicting a smiling Black man wearing a hat and tie, with a city skyline in the background

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