Photo: Damon Hall//Unsplash
Earlier this month, Vanity Fair published “The Surf Bros, the Villagers, the Wave Doctor, the Tech Money, and the Fight for Fiji’s Soul,” an epic article by David Kushner about three men fighting against a mysterious developer attempting to illegally seize a plot of land on a Fijian island. Soon, we may be able to see the saga played out on screen. As Deadline reports, production company Anchor Entertainment is now adapting the story into a feature documentary.
The Vanity Fair story follows Ratu “Jona” Joseva, a Fijian boat taximan, and two Australian surfers, Navrin Fox and Woody Jack, who bought a property of coastline on Malolo, 15 minutes away from Cloudbreak. Soon after, the three men discovered mysterious builders had illegally seized the land adjacent to them and were developing the area for a resort by digging into the nearby reef and eviscerating the surrounding ecosystem. Kushner documents their five year struggle to halt the developer, and the web of money and corruption surrounding it.
The story is an epic, too long to recap here (it even involves Shaw Mead, the scientist who has been responsible for most of the world’s failed artificial reefs through his companies ASR and WWP), and feels like a perfect fit for the screen. In fact, it wouldn’t be the first time Kushner’s work has been adapted. He also wrote Zola, an article about the true story behind the greatest Twitter thread ever made, which became a film of the same name, made by A24.
“Kushner’s investigative reporting presents a pressing urgency as it pertains to the complicated nature of global tourism,” said Ethan Goldman, Founder and CEO of Anchor Entertainment. “With this complex story we aim to present a multi-layered eco-thriller, all set within the visually stunning backdrop of Fiji’s pristine yet fragile natural beauty.”
