Momentum Generation

At the start of the nineties a group of young surfers share a house on the north shore of Oahu in Hawaii. All are fifteen or sixteen and all want to turn professional. Among them are Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Shane Dorian, Taylor Knox and Ross Williams. A video maker starts filming them and the tape that comes out spreads through the surfing world. Over the next decade this group changes professional surfing. At the same time they compete against each other and the friendship gets buried under the competition. Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist direct. The documentary dates from 2018. Its material is largely the amateur video of the period; those tapes also changed how surfing was sold. The matter at the centre is not success but a friendship spoiled by rivalry, and the documentary opens it through individual interviews. Most of the group came from difficult family backgrounds and the film talks about that directly. Kelly Slater's world titles are the background of the narrative but the documentary does not put him at the centre. More weight is given to the interviews than to the competition footage, and that choice sets the register. Its limit is closeness; the narrative keeps no distance from its subjects and a critical view is missing. Who it is for: anyone curious about sports documentary and the history of surfing. Who it is not for: the structure is loose, the emotional register high, and the names blur for anyone who does not follow surfing.