When Albe Falzon and David Elfick released ‘Morning of the Earth’ in 1972, Bali was a revelation. In Australian cinemas, surfers hooted and screamed their approval as they watched Steve Cooney and Rusty Miller glide across sparkling, emerald walls at Uluwatu. Enchanted by what they’d seen, many walked out of MOTE screenings, abandoned any other life-plans and set their sights on making it to Indo.  As surfers flocked to the archipelago, new waves were discovered and soon other films like ‘Tubular Swells’ and ‘Storm Riders’ fuelled the infatuation with Indonesia.  And so, for more than 50 years the story of Indonesian surfing has mostly been told through a western paradigm, with foreign directors and producers framing the action and the narrative – often pointing their cameras at travelling surfers. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but 26-year-old filmmaker and music producer, Gibran Putra Wirjawan, aka Gibs, wanted to create a film about Indonesian surfing through the lens of locals. Perhaps he could even craft a movie that made a broader Indonesian audience fall in love with their own surfing culture, the same way MOTE did for Australians all those years ago. 

I first ran into Gibs on the island of Siberut in the Mentawai Islands, just after he had just finished an expansive, six-month shoot, incorporating six different island/regions – Bali, Java, Lombok, The Mentawai, West Papua and Sumba. Struck by his affable nature and intrigued by his quest to traverse the archipelago and provide a different take on Indonesian surfing, I suggested we continue the conversation.

By the time we chat on the phone, Gibs and his team are deep in editing mode, but he already has a title for the documentary ‘Samudra’, which, he explains, is an ancient Javanese and Balinese word for ocean. “My main mission is ...