When we founded the London Surf/Film Festival in 2011 we were determined to bring the best contemporary surf movies from across the globe to the UK audience. But we were also adamant in our desire to create a platform for UK and Irish talent to reach out, so we established The Shorties – a short surf film competition where emerging and established homegrown talents could shine. The quality and diversity of entries we received were a real testament to the wealth of creativity on these shores while last year’s winning Shortie, ‘Uncommon Ideals’ from Chris McClean and Mark Waters went viral, before going on to be shortlisted in The Surfer Poll, the Vimeo Awards as well as scoring big at many of the world’s top film festivals.
This year The Shorties, presented by National Trust, is back and the standard is again incredibly high. The entries have been whittled down to a long list of 20 short films and they range from action, to animation to comedy and from touching tales of taking your first steps on a board to shred flicks showcasing some of our best surfers. From this long list we invite the wider surf community to vote for their favourites to be screened as part of the festival programme from 11– 14 October alongside some of this years biggest features.
Check out our longlist and cast your vote here: http://www.londonsurffilmfestival.com/category/shorts/longlist
To whet your appetite, below is one of our Shorties featuring John Eldridge, a photographer whose film ‘Sightings’ follows a classic session at G-Land that harks back to a golden era at the then newly discovered Javanese point. John is styling on a 7’4″ tracker-inspired single-fin gun shaped by Ellis Ericson. Enjoy.
