It’s not really a surf movie, which is what I love about it,” UK big wave surfer Taz Knight tells me from his house in Bundoran, having just wrangled a few waves at Mullaghmore. “Mikey, the director, was worried that there wasn’t enough focus or surf footage in it. But I love that in the five years that we made the film, the story evolved much more from the idea we started with.”
Knight is talking about Savage Waters, a 90-minute film that has been scooping awards for best documentary, cinematography, soundtrack, and director at a host of European film festivals since it premiered this month.
Not that the original idea was a bad one. Taz’s father Matt had come across a 19th-century treasure hunter’s journal from a trip to the Salvage Islands in the middle of the Atlantic. For Matt, an experienced sailor (Taz was born and named after a brutal crossing of the Tasman Sea 24 years ago) and keen surfer, one passage from The Cruise of the Alert had his salty veins pumping.
The Knight family, very much the beating heart of this beautiful film. Photo: Craig Maddison
“A huge, green roller, very high and steep, suddenly rose as if by magic from the deep…then swept over the shoal, when it reached the shallowest part, its crest hungover, forming a cavern underneath, through which the sun shone with a beautiful green light.”
Matt decided to seek out and surf the mythical, never-ridden wave located in one of the most remote and dangerous waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He enlisted his wife and co-pilot of 30 years Suzanne, Taz, and his talented surfing sister Peony, plus long-time friend and Nazare big wave legend Andrew Cotton. Aboard their 53-foot Wharram catamaran The Hecate, the plan was for director Mikey Corker to film the Knight’s modern-day surfing treasure hunt.
“The hunt for waves started it all, but it became a love story about mum and dad,” said Taz. “How they raised us kids for a life of adventure and also the obstacles Cottie had overcome just to be surfing, let alone on the boat, became just as important.”
The narration by Charles Dance, the UK actor best known for playing Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones, adds some serious theatrical heft to the old-world tale. The land, ocean, and surf cinematography at locations like Nazare, Madeira, the UK, and the Azores are also stunning. Yet the beating heart of the film, and the one which elevates it above a surf movie, is Taz’s parents’ relationship and their adventurous lives.
Taz Knight, and sacred treasures. Photo: Whipped Sea
“It was pretty obvious pretty early on that my parents were different, they were one of the few progressive farmers in the big traditional farming community where we lived, planting trees and rewinding our land,” said Taz. “Plus we’d take time off school to go off on sailing, surfing, and other mad adventures. There were no other kids I knew doing that.”
Historical footage of the couple’s sailing adventures around the world, including some tragedy, is spliced with more recent trips. One is a five-month journey as the support boat for Ross Edgely, a family friend who became the first person to swim around The British Isles, a distance of 2,000 miles. The whole Knight Family, including Taz and his three sisters, undertook that journey, including Suzanne who was undergoing treatment for advanced melanoma.
A piece of the Salvage Islands – and the modern search for treasure. Photo: WhippedSea
“I’ve enjoyed how everyone who has watched the film seems to love my mum,” says Taz. “I think mothers throughout history have been under appreciated. They are often doing most of the important work in the background, and not getting the credit, but in the film, you can see how much light and joy she brings to not just our family, but anyone she has a connection with.”
We won’t reveal whether the Knight family and Cottie eventually find the big wave treasure they originally sought, but in many ways it’s irrelevant. This is a movie that is about adventure and family, and love and loss, and how the ocean can provide endless sources of inspiration. And despite some incredible waves, and great surfing, it isn’t a surf movie. And it’s all the better for it.
Find out more about viewing Savage Waters here.
