Sidetracked

It was only a matter of time before the Malloy brothers would be featured on Surf Night at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.

First of all, the brothers Malloy (along with cousin Emmet) are from the Central Coast (Ventura.) Secondly, they have become titans in the surf film industry.

Their company, The Moonshine Conspiracy — which includes singer surfer/Jack Johnson as an owner –  has produced several popular surf films, including “Thicker Than Water,” “Sprout,” “Shelter” and “The Seedling.” And a music division of that company eventually became Johnson’s Brushfire Records.

Not only do the Malloys make movies — they also appear in them. They are, after all, first rate surfers, whose friends include the top names in surfing.  While they are succesful, competetive surfers, they embody the spirit of soul surfing.

Their film “Waverider” will no doubt showcase some of that. In the film, the brothers return to Ireland — they were featured there in Dana Brown’s “Step Into Liquid” — where they trace the history of the Stoke there through George Freeth, the “Father of Modern Surfing,” who first introduced surfing to the mainland in the early 20th century. In Ireland, they also find Irish surfers and chronicle surfing a 50-foot wave there.

So far director Joel Conroy has signed on to appear with the film, with other “notable surfers” to be announced later.

The film does feature Kelly Slater, who has appeared at the Santa Barbara Film Fest. But we’ll see if he actually comes to little SLO.

The event will be held at the Fremont March 18.

In the future, be sure to check Sarah Linn’s movie blog for more on the film festival. She recently interviewed this year’s King Vidor recipient, Alan Arkin, so you can expect to read about that both on her blog and in The Tribune.

Posted on February 8th, 2010 by Pat
Filed under: Uncategorized