Imagine Making A Surf Movie With 19 Of Your Friends

Fresh off one of the best months of surf cinema in recent memory, a group of French freethinkers are putting forth their bid of independently-funded self-expression. 

Keks Machine is a squadron of surfers, skaters, artists and hooligans who run Biarritz. Ian Crane got a firsthand look at their avante-garde philosophy. Stab Highway Europe viewers will recall this is the same group that spray-painted McKenzie Bowden and lit his hair on fire in a Biarritz back alley, so you can expect their content to be outside the box. 

“Dirty Independent Identity” is the result of a year of work from the French collective’s DIY production and includes film from France, Portugal, Morocco, Brazil and Indo. Produced and edited by Jordan Sevellec and Florian Miot-Bruneau, the 20-minute film features 19 surfers and an originally scored soundtrack.

It’s got all the characteristics of a homemade flick. The handycam film, fisheye lenses, a little roughhousing and some (mostly) lighthearted drinking all give the appearance they don’t take themselves too seriously, but they take surfing seriously enough to dedicate time and money to making quality content. 

These aren’t the A-listers you probably follow on Instagram (and they probably don’t care if you don’t), but they ooze creativity, are proud of their independently made product and (as you should watch above) know how to capitalize when conditions materialize. 

To the self-described “adrenaline junkies, happy dudes, working guys, professionally unemployed” surfers, you can’t put a price on personality. And in what might be a first in surf edits, the middle finger-to-clip ratio could be nearly equal.