Covering Media

As seen in SPLINTERS, a film by Adam Pesce. Picture courtesy SnagFilms. All rights reserved.

Splinters (2011/2012)

Opened: 02/03/2012 Limited

Trailer: Click for trailer

Websites: Home, Twitter, Facebook

Genre: Sports Documentary

Rated: Unrated

Synopsis

Splinters is the first feature length documentary film about the evolution of indigenous surfing in the developing nation of Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s an intrepid Australian pilot left behind a surfboard in the seaside village of Vanimo. Twenty years later, surfing is not only a pillar of village life but a means to prestige. With no access to economic or educational advancement, let alone running water and power, village life is hermetic. A spot on the Papua New Guinea national surfing team is the way to see the wider world; the only way.

Filmed in cinema verite style, the film profiles several villagers in their quest to become professional surfers. Set at the crossroads of civilization in a land where cannibalism proceeded into the 20th century, the story is as much a tale of budding sportsmen chasing their dreams as it is the Old World fusing with the Modern World.

Angelus and Ezekiel are two friends destined for greatness but with distinct approaches to their goal of getting on the national surfing team. Self-assured and boisterous, Angelus is confident he is the best surfer in the nation while the talented yet gun shy Ezekiel lets his surfing do the talking. Fueled by glossy images in surfing magazines left behind by the odd-traveling Western surfer, the two young men are united in their fantasy of being paid wave riders. The female surfing prowess in Papua New Guinea is consolidated in one family. Lesley and Susan are sisters etching a new path in a male-dominated sport and a community where they are secondclass citizens by simple virtue of their womanhood.

The upcoming inaugural Papua New Guinea National Surfing Titles is the ultimate ground for this surfing ensemble to prove its talent and will send the winner to Australia to train with world-class surfing athletes. This is the incipient step necessary to transform a humble villager to the first ever Papua New Guinean professional surfer. But, as with any scarce resource, fierce competition ensues and a rival village surf club will employ any means necessary to win.

Wrapped in a compelling visual aesthetic, Splinters is at once a visceral dramatic narrative about a village grappling with its identity and young heroes using their surfboards to carry them to a better life.

Director's Statement

The phenomenon of Western music and cinema revamping the cultural terrain of far-flung lands is ubiquitous. But in the village of Vanimo it really is the surfboard that is the most ardent ambassador of the West. It serves as both an icon of the Modern World and the mechanism by which the indigenous environment is remodeled.

I never set out to make a "surf movie." My aim with Splinters, rather, is to introduce the viewer to an experiment unfolding in a Petri dish. How the surfboard catalyst will ultimately fuse two disparate worlds together is unknown. Will it be the golden goose that provides a "way out" for emerging surfing talent? Or could it give false hope and usher in the erasure of indigenous heritage while paving the way for commercial exploitation from the West? It is important to me that the film enlivens this debate yet leaves it unresolved.

In the people I filmed I see the Old World/Modern World crossroads personified. Ezekiel's puffed up surf dream is fed by the promise of Western stardom. With the advent of Western influence, Lesley and Susan could be the beneficiaries of women's rights but at the cost of eroding indigenous "family values."

The dream of winning the surfing competition is not only that, it is the dream of achieving status in a modern world. That is the grand prize for the individual surfers and village at the end of the day. The siren song is sweet and much in the same way we might be inclined to idealize paradise, it seems paradise is looking back at us wearing the same rose-colored glasses.

Vanimo is a microcosm. Although castaway and idyll it is a reminder of the wider world's struggle for "progress." What is lusted after there is no different than here. The reality of that satiny, polished next big thing may not be either.

-- Adam Pesce

Q&A with Director Adam Pesce

Have you always been a surfing fan? Why did you choose to make a film about surfing?

I started surfing in high school and it soon became an influential element in my life. When the swell, tide and wind would combine to produce the best surfing conditions social, work or academic obligations would quickly go out the window. Holiday destinations would be based on the proximity to the nearest good break. If I happened to be driving by the ocean when waves were rolling in and I couldn't stop to surf it was tortuous.

What I love about surfing is that it's both athletic and artistic. When you are on a wave it's your canvas for selfexpression and you are bound only by your technique and your imagination. The feeling of riding a piece of ocean energy is incandescent. For many, the chase to repeat that feeling becomes a lifelong pursuit and surfing is not considered a sport but something of a religious quest. You become attuned to weather patterns. It requires you to be in sync with the ocean in its myriad moods. Surfing demands strength, balance and grace under pressure. So it's this fantastic combination of disciplines. Kind of like filmmaking.

This film definitely chose me. Splinters emerged as a hybrid of passions of mine: surfing, travel and cinema. All the elements were there and it was nice to be able to feed off the inspiration I get from all of them.

How did the project come together?

It consisted of a lot of fits and starts. While daydreaming and thumbing through a surfing magazine I stumbled on the article that really set the project in motion. A remote seaside community in Papua New Guinea had been introduced to surfing and became fanatical about it. I was curious about why this off the map village was so drawn to the sport. And I also wondered how this countercultural object of the surfboard might transform the village, for better or for worse.

I made an initial two-month shoestring research trip with some friends in late 2003 through early 2004. I came back with a few beauty shots but no story. I definitely did not have a movie. At a loss about what to do with the footage, I put it away in my closet and sat on it.

In 2006, I heard from Andy, the president of the Papua New Guinea Surfing Association, that the first national surfing championship was in the works. I knew that this event could potentially be the spine to hold a film together and started making preparations to head back to Papua New Guinea.

Unable to find a crew, I ultimately went alone with my cameras, tapes and surfboards. I also made a promise to myself that I would not return until I had a film. Shooting for six out of seven months alone, I came home with hundreds of hours of footage and was sure that this time I had the components of a movie. But with no producer or post-production budget I sat, yet again, on the footage for nearly a year.

Come early 2008, I was introduced by a friend to my amazing producer Perrin. His enthusiasm was palpable and we were working together a few days later. We then had the challenge of financing a rather esoteric documentary during the financial meltdown. After knocking on a lot of doors, in the winter of 2009 we were funded and started editing.

What drew you to Angelus, Ezekiel, Lesley and Susan as the subjects of Splinters?

Before I could even begin the "casting" process I had to get a sense of who was who in the village and what the general dynamics were. As a consequence, during my first two months back in the country in 2006 I hardly shot any material. I was living at Steve's house with his family and doing my best just to be a part of daily village life. A critical component of that was learning the lingua franca, Tok Pisin, so that I could understand people and be understood myself.

And of course I was surfing a lot. Surfing is a passion of mine but it proved a real functional element to the filmmaking process. In the water I got a picture of who had natural talent and who might be a contender in the competition. Out of the water, initially, there was a cultural divide when meeting people. Being surfers first and then Papua New Guinean or American second, made it easier to bridge that gap. Overall, it was a way to be in spirit and in sync with the village.

Steve made an introduction to Angelus and Ezekiel and from there I got to know these two talented but different guys. In both his surfing and his personal life Angelus is pure id. And I was rapt with the way he would let his emotions out in an unfiltered way. He surfs aggressively and is just as brazen out of the water. For all his flaws, I found him an extremely charismatic person. Ezekiel surfs with these elegant, flowing lines that, as a surfer, I was really impressed by. In fact, I often caught myself getting jealous that I couldn't surf as gracefully. He is truly a gentle soul and I admired his overflowing earnestness. Watching him navigate the competition was wild because I could just see him losing his naivete in the process. And both guys, like leading men in any movie, happen to be handsome and charming.

Getting to know Lesley and Susan was a little more difficult. I spent a month encouraging both of the women to be a part of the film. They expressed sincere interest but would then disappear. And it was back and forth like this for a while. Later I learned it was a result of their families not wanting them to participate. Lesley and Susan were in a tough position because their family felt the women would be breaking social taboos spending all this time with a whiteman.

I was drawn to the Lesley and Susan not only because of the obvious sister rivalry element but because they had divergent outlooks on village life. Putting some of the nasty patriarchal elements off the table for a moment, Susan was comfortable with her role as a village mom. She wasn't resigned to it but took pride in it. I liked that she believed in traditional family life and yet her sister took a contrarian stance. Lesley was always stirring the pot in one way or another. I appreciated her need to go against the grain even though the society's mores were concretely stacked against her.

What were your biggest challenges during filming?

I really wanted to do justice to the beauty and complexity of Vanimo Village. I was astounded by the duality: one moment you are seeing children playing with the most heartbreaking purity and innocence, the next, the mother of one of those children is being beaten senseless. Beauty and violence were always sharing a common boundary. It was hard to make sense of these and many other contrasts because they were so extreme and often happening concurrently.

It was the most sublime and tragic place I'd ever been. I often wondered whether I had the capacity and skill set to capture the totality of it because it felt enormously dense and significant. The last thing I wanted to do was shortchange the grandeur of the place, warts and all, because I was a neophyte. I wasn't sure I was the guy for the job.

There is a graphic beating of a woman in the film. Why include that scene? It seems gratuitous in a way.

While an extreme manifestation, this was very much a part of my experience living there. Almost every woman I met had an experience with domestic violence. It's so out of control that there are Public Service Announcements that remind you not to beat your mother, your wife or your daughter. It's tragic and absurd.

I disagree that the scene is gratuitous. If the scene is viewed on its own, without context, sure. But given its placement I feel it is strongly tied to the lives of the characters. Susan has direct experience with domestic violence, as does her sister Lesley. Steve witnesses the beating, is shaken and in turn lectures Ezekiel and other boys in his surf club about improving the treatment of women. While we don't see Susan and Lesley's beatings on screen, we can clearly imagine their intensity as a consequence of experiencing this other visceral event. And hopefully we're more caring of them as a result.

It also comes early enough in the film where the audience is still getting a sense of what daily life is like. The scene is a part of that tapestry and sets up the life that surfing provides a reprieve from and, perhaps, might help to change.

What do you think people in Papua New Guinea love about surfing?

I think they love it for the same reasons a surfer anywhere on earth does: it is so damn fun!

What format did you shoot the film on?

For the most part, I shot the film on a video camera made by Panasonic called the DVX-100. I also used a Canon XL-1 at some stages. Both cameras are standard definition and completely obsolete now. There's more resolution in the video coming out of a new iPhone. I definitely got a little bogged down in the technology at the time I was researching gear but I ultimately got some advice from filmmaker Hubert Sauper. He said, "You make the film with your brain, not the equipment." That was helpful for me to hear and kept me focused on story and character.

What do you want people to take away from this film? What makes it important?

I want to provide the audience a way into a world they wouldn't ordinarily have access to. Hopefully, it's an invitation to have an experience that otherwise might not be available as well. What they take away from that is personal and up to them.

Frankly, it's an arcane subject matter: Papua New Guinean surfers. Really? How is that going to make for a film? On its own it doesn't; that's the veneer. For me, it's not a film about surfing. And it's not even so much a film about Papua New Guinea. What I hope makes it worthwhile is that it's a window and further evidence that people the world over dream. And maybe those dreams are fragile or even arbitrary. But if from Splinters you can see a part of yourself, your own hopes, in a person from a village at the edge of the world, then that makes me really happy.

About the Filmmakers

Adam Pesce (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor)

Adam was born in California and learned to surf at a break called Rincon. While studying Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College he stumbled on an image of a Papua New Guinean boy riding a broken surfboard smiling ear to ear. The idea for Splinters was born.

With no cinema training, Adam left for Melanesia with two cameras, hundreds of tapes, a few surfboards and a vow not to return without a film. Living in Vanimo Village and operating without a translator Adam taught himself the national language, Tok Pisin. He even got malaria a few times for good measure. Adam travelled to Papua New Guinea over the course of several years and for six out of the total nine months of production he shot alone.

Splinters is Adam's directorial debut.

Perrin Chiles (Producer)

Perrin Chiles is an Emmy Award-winning producer and founder of In Effect Films, a documentary film company created with the purpose of affecting social change through film and television. Perrin's first film, Autism: The Musical, world premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, was bought by HBO and has garnered a variety of worldwide interest, awards and acclaim, including the 2008 Academy Awards Short List for Best Documentary Feature and winning two of five Emmy Awards for Best Nonfiction Program and Best Editing. Perrin is midway through production on 100 Years, a documentary film which explores race in America through African Americans over the age of one hundred years old. The film is a recent Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and is directed by Emmy Award-winner and Oscar nominated Kimberlee Acquaro.

Currently, Perrin works as an independent producer and writer in Los Angeles. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Perrin assisted in the business organization, fundraising endeavors and investment analysis of Elevation Partners, a leading media and entertainment leveraged buyout fund with $1.8 billion under management. Before Elevation, Perrin worked at Silver Lake Partners, a premier technology private equity fund with $3.6 billion under management. Additionally, Perrin worked in investment banking for Wachovia Securities' Technology Investment Banking Group. Perrin Chiles graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Economics & History in 1999.

Kim Roberts (Editor)

Kim is an Emmy Award-winning editor of feature documentaries. Her recent work includes Waiting for Superman, Food, Inc. (nominated for a 2010 Oscar) and Autism the Musical (HBO). Kim won an Emmy for Autism the Musical, her third nomination. She was also nominated for an ACE Eddie award for Food, Inc. Her other films include: Oscar Nominees Daughter from Danang and Long Night's Journey into Day; Two Days in October (Peabody '06); Made in L.A. (Emmy '09); The Fall of Fujimori; Lost Boys of Sudan; A Hard Straight and Daddy & Papa. She won a Student Academy Award and is a WGA Award nominee. Kim received her Masters in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University.