Taylor Steele’s Annual Surf Film Festival Starts In Two Weeks And Will Feature A New John Florence Film + Snapt5 Bsides

Click here to enter for a chance at free tickets (we’ll cross reference your active Stab Premium Membership) and click here for first dibs on purchasing tickets.

Movies have Cannes, music has Coachella, adults in tights have Comic-Con, and surfing has the Solento Film Festival.

Three years ago, Taylor Steele started the Solento Film Festival to “shine the spotlight back on full-length surf films.”

Since then, he’s introduced dozens of now-beloved surf films to the world at the festival — including John John’s Gravity, Kerby Brown’s Facing Monsters (currently playing exclusively on Stab Premium), Billabong’s Trilogy: New Wave, and Michael Oblowitz’s infamous Sea of Darkness, just to name a few.

For the extra obsessive among us, the best part of the Festival is Taylor’s interviews with the surfing’s best surfers/filmmakers/industry characters in an informal and, err… socially lubricated setting.

Plus, Taylor is offering free tickets for Stab Premium Members — fill out the survey above for your chance at free tickets for the Solento Film Festival (please only sign up if you definitely will be attending).

Also, for the gen-pop, you can get first dibs on tickets here.

This year, Taylor and team have organized 10 feature films. Here are the movies and their official synopses below:

Thursday 9/19:

The Road to Patagonia:

The Road to Patagonia is a stunning, intimate and unflinching series of love letters within a documentary – firstly a love between two people, and secondly between humanity and the Earth.
Follow Hannon on an incredible solo adventure, to surf the west coast of the Americas by motorbike, from the top of Alaska to the tip of Patagonia. But deep in the wilderness – alone with the wolves and the bears – the journeyer’s plans unexpectedly fall to pieces. After losing everything, and on the cusp of quitting he meets the girl of his dreams, a permaculture farmer named Heather Hillier who throws caution to the wind and sells her urban-farm to buy a bike of her own. Together riding south, the duo meet with Zapatista rebels, Amazonian shamans and Mapuche leaders whose salient words crack the adventurers’ cultural veneer, leaving them with existential questions. The 50,000km surfing odyssey becomes beautifully complicated by their decision to downshift from motorcycles to horseback, presenting a relational approach to the breathtaking landscapes and a host of challenges that ultimately become extremely rewarding.

Hannon and Hillier succeed in beautifully capturing deeply human moments during the world-first expedition, and the noticeable lack of camera-crew becomes The Road to Patagonia’s strength. The theme of deep ecology underpins the entire film, visually communicated through exquisite cinematography and emotional verité sequences. Shot over 16 years, the result is an adventurous exposé on the more-than-human world, offering a physical and spiritual odyssey to better understand our place in Nature.

Snapts to Nowhere: The Search for Jeramiahs Cove Starring Senior Asher Peso:

Asher Pacey heads south of the border and scores an empty point break all to himself — sampling 4 new boards over 3 days while filming for Snapt5.

Let Me Live:

Portrait on big-wave surfer Tom Lowe.

The Granny Grommets:

“The Granny Grommets, a nearly 90-strong group of women, come from all walks of life and with all the life experiences that an older person brings with them, to bodyboard every Friday morning at Middleton beach in Albany in Western Australia. This film ultimately reflects on the healing and transformative power community and friendship provide for us later in life.”

Friday 9/20:

North Stars:

A 42-minute surf film & portrait of Adrien Toyon by Yentl Touboul. At the crossroads of a surf film and a visual portrait, the film depicts Adrien through the eyes of some of his closest friends and those of the board makers who’ve inspired his dive into alternative designs. Filmed around the world in between 2022 and 2024, from Adrien’s home Island of Reunion to Australia, Biarritz and the cliffs of Western Ireland.

Also featuring Mikey February, Kobe Hughes, Andrew Kidman, Shane Sykes, Koldo Illumbe, Tom Morat, Lee-Ann Curren, Peta, Hanna Scott, Micky Clarke and more.

Snapt5 Below the Cut:

Monster energy team riders Parker Coffin , Taro Watanabe & Levi Slawson go far off the beaten path in Indonesia on a mission to stack clips for Snapt5.

Creatures of Habit:

Filmed in the Pacific Northwest and Iceland, Creatures of Habit explores pushing boundaries and embracing uncertainty by surfing in unpredictable and challenging to access locations. The aim is to leave behind the comforts and absolutes learned over time and to embrace the cold and unknown.

Saturday 9/21:

Horse:

A surf film by James Kates. Starring Noa Deane in a striking vignette of travel and shelf discovery.  Appearances from Tom Gillespie & Makoa Gomez. Original score by Russell W.

333 Degrees: INTO THE COOLY-VERSE

Starring Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, and Dean Morrison.

Here & There:

Florence presents the newest short film from John and Parallel Sea: Here & There. Still unreleased, and documented over the 2023/24 winter on the North Shore, the film follows the Florence brothers as they continue to push the boundaries of performance in their own backyard. 

Click here to enter for a chance at free tickets (we’ll cross reference your active Stab Premium Membership) and click here for first dibs on purchasing tickets.