When Kai Neville makes a movie, it’s a sure bet it’ll be worth watching. From Lost Atlas and Modern Collective to Cluster and Dear Suburbia, Neville is responsible for some of the greatest surf films of all time. And now, he’s got a new one: Vacuum.
“‘Vacuum,’ the latest visual portrait from director Kai Neville, offers a captivating visual collage of the Epokhe surf team,” the film’s description reads. “Collected from various locations around the globe, these clips provide a kaleidoscopic depiction of their world.”
Part of Neville’s success is not only his filmmaking chops, but the people he makes surf films with. They’re some of the best surfers in the world, but also some of the most interesting. Surfers who don’t necessarily fit into a certain mold; surfers who march to the beat of their own drum, as it were.
The cast of characters for Vacuum is a pretty ridiculous one. Dakoda Walters, Jai Glindeman, Kanaiya Webb, Eithan Osborne, Lungi Slabb, Jaleesa Vincent, Kaito Ohashi, Chippa Wilson, Shaun Manners, Dion Agius, Mitch Coleborn, Jack Freestone, Mark Occhilupo, Craig Anderson, Taj Burrow, and Creed Mctaggart are all featured in it, and it’s made up of iconic footage of the team in action, mostly at their home breaks. Also included is a bit of unseen footage from Occy’s archive, and the whole thing was curated by none other than Jack McCoy.
If one were to write a recipe for a great surf film, they couldn’t do much better than the ingredients involved in Vacuum.
