This Teenager Bankrolled Her Next QS Season With a Four-Minute Edit

Ava Holland, an 18-year-old from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, considers herself lucky to live the way she does.

Much of her time is spent in the ocean with competitive goals in mind, but there’s another side of surfing she doesn’t want to neglect. “Lucky was a way for me to express my surfing creatively through a different lens and express myself outside of competition,” she told Stab.

Surfing without waiting for a number after every kick out is more like play; a little more liberating. So, Ava went back through footage collected around Bells and in Indonesia, added some personal handycam records, and edited the short above.

The process gave her a way to explore the creative side of surfing on her own terms, and a chance to bring those two worlds she inhabits together.

Ava premiered Lucky at a local brewery, where the screening doubled as a fundraiser for her Qualifying Series campaign next year. The turnout, she says, “exceeded expectations.”

A little luck helps, and Ava is already making her own.