Some of the most textured, honest and culturally significant stories in surfing live in small pockets and core communities. Without independent filmmakers willing to put in the graft, carrying the weight of production themselves, while also protecting the communities they’re filming rather than just exploiting them for content, these stories simply don’t get told.
That’s exactly what Ben Maurice set out to do with ‘Bread and Butter’ – a three year ‘fly on the wall’ style solo project which documents the lives of surfers in New Zealand’s capital – Wellington.
When you think of surfing in NZ, your mind instantly takes you to the endless left-hand walls of Raglan, rather than the windy city – and locals of Wellington don’t mind that. They’re perfectly happy in their core community which Ben describes as ‘creative, quirky and under the radar – Lord of the Rings vibes’.
“Here it’s all about show rather than tell. You find people building things in their garages, people have little side hustles going on. It’s very DIY style and core. But at the same time it’s a very gentle community,” he said.
As for the waves, they have their moments but only for small windows at a time.
“It’s the windiest city in the world, so you are constantly adapting to the conditions,” he said. “Winters can get tough; you’ve got to really want it but that’s what makes scoring here so special.
“There are the cities well-known breaks and there are some lesser-known corners if you know where to look.”
What sets Bread and Butter apart isn’t just its subject matter, it’s the method. Ben deliberately steered away from the fast-cut, banger-clip style that dominates a lot of modern surf media. “I didn’t want to tell people’s story for them,” he explained. “I just wanted to observe them, let them do their thing. That was the approach.”
No one, he said, even knew filming was happening half the time. “Let’s quietly observe the community. Let’s not put the place on blast – tell the story from afar.”
That method is precisely why the project stretched to three years. “I wanted to capture the most natural moments possible,” Ben said. “Fly on the wall style. When it finally came out, people were like – wow, this isn’t a flash in the pan.”
After three years shooting the thing, Ben reckons he spent over 100 hours in the editing bay before taking the film on a 25-plus stop tour. For Ben, who has worked in the videography space for years and produced several surf projects, the reaction to Bread and Butter has eclipsed anything he’s made.
“This has been next level compared to all the other things. All the past projects have been leading up to this. I’ve never had a community reaction like this.”
Now, the film is free to view online. For a glimpse into a special pocket of New Zealand surfing culture hit the link above.
